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THE 


Poetical   Works 


THOMAS     GRAY 


WITH  A    MEMOIR. 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS    R.  KNOX    &    CO. 

successors  to  james  mtller 
813  Broadway 
1885 


TROWS 

PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING  COMPANY 

NEW   YOR.;. 


CONTENTS. 

Page 

Life  of  Gray,  by  Rev.  J.  Mitford ix 

POEMS. 

On  the  Spring 3 

On  the  Death  of  a  Favorite  Cat 5 

On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College 7 

Hymn  to  Adversity 11 

The  Progress  of  Poesy   ........  13 

The  Bard .        .  18 

Ode  for  Music 24 

The  Fatal  Sisters 28 

The  Descent  of  Odin 31 

The  Triumphs  of  Owen 35 

The  Death  of  Hoel 37 

Sonnet  on  the  Death  of  Mr.  Richard  West         ...  39 

Epitaph  on  Mrs.  Jane  Clerke 40 

Epitaph  on  Sir  William  Williams 41 

Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Churchyard        ....  42 

A  Long  Story 48 

POSTHUMOUS   POEMS  AND    FRAGIMENTS. 

Ode  on  the  Pleasure  arising  from  Vicissitude         ...  57 

translation  of  a  Passage  from  Statins        ....  61 

The  Fragment  of  a  Tragedy  on  the  Death  of  Agrippina        .  63 

Hymn  to  Ignorance 71 

The  Alliance  of  Education  and  Government  .        ...  73 


VI 


cox  TEXTS. 


Stanzas  to  Mr.  Bentley 77 

Sketch  of  his  own  Character 79 

Amatory  Lines 80 

Song 81 

Tophet 82 

Impromptu 83 

Extracts. 

Propertius,  Lib.  ni.  Eleg.  V.  v.  19         .        .        .        .85 

Propertius,  Lib  II.  Eleg.  I.  v.  17        .        .        .        .  88 

Tasso  Gerus.  Lib.  Cant  XIV.  St.  32         .        .        .        .  91 
Poemata. 

Hymeneal  on  the  Marriage  of  His  Royal  Highness  the 

Prince  of  Wales 94 

Luna  Habitabilis 97 

Sapphic  Ode  :  to  Mr  West 101 

Alcaic  Fragment 103 

Lines  to  Mr  West 103 

Elegiac  Verses 103 

Carmen  ad  C.  Favonium  Zephyrinum     ....  104 

Fragment  of  a  Latin  Poem  on  the  Gaurus  .        .        .  106 

A  Farewell  to  Florence 108 

Imitation  of  an  Italian  Sonnet 109 

Alcaic  Ode 110 

Part  of  an  Heroic  Epistle     .                 ....  Ill 

De  Principiis  Cogitandi 113 

Greek  Epigram 121 

Extracts. 

Petrarca  Part  I.  Sonetto  170 122 

From  the  Anthologia  Grseca 123 

Notes 127 


LIFE 


REV.    JOHN    MITFORD. 


LIFE    OF    GRAY. 

THOMAS  GRAY,  the  subject  of  the 
present  narrative,  was  the  fifth  cliild  of 
]Mr.  Philip  Gray,  a  citizen  and  money-scriv- 
ener of  London.^  His  grandfather  was  also 
a  merchant  in  good  repute  in  the  same  place. 
The  maiden  name  of  his  mother  was  Dorothy 
Antrobus.  Thomas  Gray  was  born  in  Corn- 
hill,  the  26th  of  December,  1716,  and  was  the 

*  Gray's  father,  Mr.  Cole  tells  us,  in  his  MS.  Collec- 
tion, had  been  an  Exchange-broker;  but  the  fortune  he 
had  acquired  of  about  £  10,000  was  greatly  hurt  by  the 
fire  in  Cornhill;  so  that  Mr,  Gray,  many  yeai's  ago,  sunk. 
a  good  part  of  what  was  left,  and  purchased  an  annuity, 
to  have  a  fuller  income.  He  also  says  that  Gray's  prop- 
erty amounted  at  his  death  to  above  £  7,000.  In  a  copy 
of  Gray's  Poems  which  was  Sir  James  Mackintosh's,  and* 
subsequently  mine,  he  had  calculated,  in  a  blank  leaf, 
the  amount  of  Gray's  property,  and  made  it  nearly  about 
the  sum  above  mentioned.  "  His  income,"  he  writes, 
"  about  X700  per  annum,  which  (more  than  forty  years 
ago)  was  no  inconsiderable  sum." 


X  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

only  one  of  twelve  children  who  survived,  the 
rest  dying  in  their  infancy ;  and  he  owed  his 
life  entirely  to  the  tenderness  and  courage  of 
his  mother,  who,  we  are  told,  removed  the  par- 
oxysms that  attacked  him  by  opening  a  vein 
with  her  own  hand.  Of  the  character  of  his 
father  it  is  painful  to  speak :  a  long  and  unre- 
strained indulgence  in  the  violent  passions  of 
his  temper  seems  at  last  to  have  perverted  the 
natural  feelings  of  his  heart,  and  ended  in  that 
malignity  of  disposition  that  made  the  parent 
and  husband  the  enemy  of  his  own  family. 
Such  was  the  cruelty  of  his  treatment  to  his 
wife,  that  she  sought  the  advice  of  an  eminent 
civilian,  A.  d.  1735,  as  a  protection  to  her  per- 
son and  fortune :  and  it  appears  by  the  docu- 
ment preserved,  among  other  things,  that  she 
alone  provided  for  everything  for  her  son  while 
at  Eton  School  and  at  Peter-House  College, 
without  being  any  charge  to  her  hushand ;  that 
he  daily  treated  her  in  the  most  inhuman  man- 
ner, threatening  to  pursue  her  with  all  the 
vengeance  possible,  and  that  he  ivlll  ruin  him- 
self, to  undo  her  and  his  only  son  ;  but  that  she 
was  resolved,  if  possible,  to  bear  all  this,  not 
to  leave  her  shop  or  trade,  for  the  sake  of  her 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xi 

son,  to  be  able  to  assist  in  the  maintenance  of 
him  at  the  University,  since  his  father  would 
not.  No  wonder  that  the  memory  of  this 
admirable  woman  was  ever  preserved  with  the 
utmost  tenderness  by  Gray.  Mason  says,  that 
he  seldom  mentioned  his  mother  without  a 
sigh.  After  his  death,  her  gowns  and  wearing 
apparel  were  found  in  a  trunk  in  his  apart- 
ments, just  as  she  had  left  them.  It  seemed 
as  if  he  could  never  take  the  resolution  to 
open  it,  in  order  to  distribute  them  to  his 
female  relatives,  to  whom  by  his  will  he  be- 
queathed them.  It  was  towards  the  close  of 
his  life,  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  his 
Mend  Mr.  Nicholls,  that  we  find  tliis  feeling 
stiU  existing  in  all  its  force.  "  I  had  writ- 
ten," he  says,  "  to  inform  you  that  I  had  dis- 
covered a  thing  very  little  known ;  which  is, 
that  in  one's  whole  life,  one  can  never  have 
more  than  a  single  mother:  you  may  think 
this  ob^dous,  and  what  you  call  a  trite  obser- 
^  ation.  You  are  a  green  gosling !  I  v/as,  at- 
the  same  age,  very  near  as  Vvd>e  as  you,  and 
yet  I  never  discovered  this,  with  full  evidence 
and  conviction  I  mean,  till  it  was  too  late.  It 
is  thirteen  years  ago,  and  seems  but  as  yester- 


xii.  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

day  ;  and  every  day  I  live,  it  sinks  deeper  into 
my  heart." 

Gray  was  educated  at  Eton,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  Mr.  Antrobus,  his  maternal  uncle, 
who  was  at  the  time  assistant  to  Dr.  George. 
Mr.  Nicholls  once  asked  Gray,  if  he  recol- 
lected when  he  first  perceived  in  himself  any 
symptoms  of  poetry.  He  answered,  "  He 
believed  it  was  when  at  Eton:  he  began  to 
take  pleasure  in  reading  Virgil  for  his  own 
j'.musenient,  and  not  in  school  hours  as  a  task." 
He  also  asked  Mr.  Bryant,*  who  was  next 
boy  to  him  at  Eton,  what  sort  of  a  scholar 
Gray   was ;    he  said,  a  very  good  one ;    and 


*  I  have  sometimes  wondered  that  the  name  of  Jacob 
Brj-ant  nevex*  occm-s  in  Gray's  Correspondence,  and  that 
an  acquaintance  commenced  at  school,  when  friendships 
are  warmest  and  most  lasting,  did  not  continue,  nor  be- 
come more  intimate,  by  similarity  of  studies,  particularly 
as,  when  Gray  was  residing  at  Stoke,  they  were  neigli- 
bors.  But  Mr.  Nicholls  says,  that  Mr.  Bryant,  talking  to 
him  about  Gray,  seemed  to  think  that  he  had  taken 
something  ill  of  him,  and  founded  this  opinion  on  some 
circumstances  which  appeared  to  Mr.  B.  to  be  frivolous, 
and  which  he  forgot :  but  he  added,  that  he  never  heard 
Gray  mention  Bryant  but  with  respect,  regretting  only 
that  he  had  turned  his  great  learning  into  a  wrong  chan- 
nel. Mr.  Bryant's  interesting  letter  concerning  Gray  will 
be  found  at  the  end  of  this  memoir. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xiii 

added,  that  he  thought  he  could  remember 
part  of  an  exercise  of  his  on  the  subject  of 
the  freezing  and  thawing  of  words,  taken  from 
the  Spectator ;  the  short  fragment  is  as  fol- 
lows :  — 

"  Pluvifflque  loquaces 
Descendere  jugis,  et  garrulus  ingrait  imber." 

In  1734  he  was  admitted  as  a  pensioner  at 
Peter-House,  Cambridge,  in  his  nineteenth 
year.  At  Eton  his  friendship)  with  Horace 
Walpole,  and  more  particularly  with  Richard 
West,  commenced.  With  the  latter,  similar 
tastes,  and  congeniality  of  pursuits,  soon  ri- 
pened into  a  very  warm  attachment,  — "  par 
studiis  asvique  modis."  The  correspondence 
which  passed  between  them  for  eight  years, 
and  portions  of  which  Mason  published,  shows 
on  the  part  of  both  not  only  an  ardent  pursuit 
of  literature,  but  an  extraordinary  proficiency 
in  classical  knowledge,  combined  with  judg- 
ment and  taste,  remarkable  at  so  early  a  pe- 
riod of  life.  Nor  are  the  productions  of  West 
at  all  inferior  in  elegance  or  correctness  to 
those  of  Gray :  in  fact.  Mason  says,  that 
"when  at  school,  West's  genius  was  thought 
to  be  more   brilliant  t!ian   his   friend's";  and 


xiv  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

Bryant  says,  "  West  was  the  better  scholar." 
His  Latin  Compositions,  in  my  opinion,  are 
beautiful  in  sentiment  and  expression,  though 
a  few  inaccuracies  may  be  detected  ;  and  some 
of  his  English  verses  even  Pope  would  not 
have  disliked  to  own."*  In  the  Letters  which 
form  this  early  part  of  the  Memoirs  of  Gray, 
and  which  passed  between  him  and  his  friend, 
there  is  a  purity  in  the  feeling,  and  an  ele- 
gance in  the  subjects  and  descriptions,  which 
have  always  made  a  most  pleasing  impression 
on  my  mind,  increased  perhaps  in  no  small 
degree  by  that  tender  shade  of  melancholy, 
which  West's  declining  health,  and  other  cir- 
cumstances, threw  over  the  opening  prospects 
of  his  life.  A  friend,  after  a  long  interval 
had  passed,  and  indeed  during  Gray's  last 
years,  mentioned  the  name  of  West  to  him, 
when  he  looked  serious,  and  seemed  to  feel 
the  affliction  of  a  recent  loss.     It  is  said  the 

*  Ex.  gr. 

"  How  weak  is  man  to  reason's  judging  eye ! 
Bora  in  this  moment,  in  the  next  we  die: 
Part  mortal  clay,  and  part  ethereal  fire, 
Too  proud  to  creep,  too  humble  to  aspire,"  &c. 
We  have  often  heard  these  Hr.es  receive  the  high  prai->e 
of  one  whose  judgment,  knowledge,  and   pf)etical  taste 
j)o  one  would  dispute. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xv 

cause  of  "West's  disorder,  a  consumption  which 
brought  him  to  an  early  grave,  was  the  fatal 
discovery  which  he  made  of  the  treachery  of 
a  supposed  friend,  and  the  viciousness  of  a 
mother  whom  he  tenderly  loved.  This  man, 
under  the  mask  of  friendship  to  him  and  his 
family,  intrigued  with  his  mother,  and  robbed^ 
him  of  his  peace  of  mind,  his  health,  and  his 
life.  Tlie  regret  of  friendship  has  been  pre- 
served in  some  affectionate  and  beautiful  lines 
with  which  the  fragment  of  the  fourth  book 
De  Principiis  Cogitandi  begin,  and  which  he 
sent  to  Mr.  Walpole,  he  says,  "  for  the  sake  of 
the  subject." 

"  Vidi  egoniet  duro  gravitei'  concussa  dolore 
Pectora,  in  alterius  non  unquara  lenta  dolorem ; 
Et  langiiere  ociilos  vidi,  et  pallescere  amantera 
Vultuin,  quo  nur.quam  Pietas  nisi  rara,  Fidesque, 
Altus  amor  Veri,  et  purum  spirabat  Honestum. 
Visa  tamen  tardi  demum  inclementia  morbi 
Cessare  est,  reducemque  iterum  roseo  ore  Salutem 
Speravi,  atque  una  tecum,  dilecte  Favoni ! 
Credulus  heu  longos,  ut  quondam,  fallere  Soles. 
Heu  spes  nequicquam  dulces,  atque  irrita  vota! 
Heu  moestos  Soles,  sine  te  quos  ducere  flendo 
Per  desideria,  et  questus  jam  cogor  inanes !  " 

Though  Gray  in  after-life  had  many  accom- 
plislied  and  attached  friends,  the  lo^s  of  AYest 


xvi  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

was  never  sui3plied.*  When  he  removed  to 
Peter-House,  Horace  Walpole  went  to  King's 
College,  and  West  to  Christ-Church,  Oxford. 
From  this  period  the  life  of  the  poet  is  con- 
ducted by  his  biographer,  Mr.  Mason,  through 
the  medium  of  his  letters.  From  these  we 
gain  no  information  concerning  his  college 
studies,  which  were  probably  not  very  dili- 
gently prosecuted.  Of  mathematics,  he  was 
almost  entirely  ignorant ;  and  West  describes 
himself  and  his  friend  as  walking,  hand  in 
hand, 

"  Through  many  a  flow'ry  path  and  shelly  grot, 
Where  learning  lull'd  us  in  hQr private  maze:' 

During  his  residence  at  college,  from  1734 
to  1738,  his  poetical  productions  are,  a  copy 

*  So  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  more  intimate  friends  of 
Gray  were  Mason,  Wharton,  Chute,  Stonhewer,  Brown, 
Nicholls.  He  was  acquainted  with  Hurd,  but  not  isiti- 
mate;  nnd  the  name  of  one  friend  drops  off  in  the  cor- 
respondence. Mr.  Stonhewer,  I  think,  received  his  rents 
for  his  London  houses,  and  Mr.  Nicholls  was  much 
younger,  and  a  late  acquaintance.  When  at  college,  the 
intimacy  between  Gray,  Walpole,  West,  and  Asheton 
was  called  the  "  Quadruple  Alliance,"  and  they  passed 
under  the  names  of  Tydeus,  Orosmades,  Almanzor,  and 
Plato.  For  an  account  of  Asheton,  see  Aldine  Ed.  Vol.  I. 
p.  iii. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xvii 

of  Latin  verses  inserted  in  the  Musre  Etonen- 
ses,  "  Luna  Habitabilis  "  ;  another  on  the  Mar- 
riage of  the  Prince  of  Wales;*  a  Sapphic 
Ode  to  West;  and  some  smaller  poems, 
among  which  is  a  translation  of  part  of  the 
Fourteenth  Canto  of  Tasso's  "  Jerusalem  De- 
livered." I  give  the  concluding  lines,  with 
which  I  remember  hearing  the  late  Dr.  Ed- 
ward Clarke,  when  Professor  of  Mineralogy, 
finish  one  of  his  Lectures,  and  rest  on  the 
beautiful  expression  of  the  last  line  with  pe- 
culiar enunciation  ;  — 

"  Here  gems  break  through  the  night  with  glitt'ring  beam, 
And  paint  the  margin  of  the  costly  stream ; 
All  stones  of  lustre  shoot  their  vivid  ray, 
And  mix  attempered  in  a  various  day: 
Here  the  soft  emerald  smiles,  of  verdant  hue, 
And  rubies  flame,  with  sapphire's  heav'nly  blue; 
The  diamond  there  attracts  the  wond'rous  sight, 
Proud  of  its  thousand  dies  and  luxury  of  light." 

Alt.  22. 

In  1739,  at  the  request  of  Horace  Walpole, 
Gray  accompanied  him  in  his  travels  abroad ; 
and  from  his  letters  to  West,  and  his  own  fam- 
ily, we  have  a  tolerably  accurate  account  of 

*  The  twelfth  line  of  this  poem  is  not  metrical :  — 
"Irasque,  insidiasque,  et  tacitum  sub  pectore  vulnus  "; 
but  it  stands  so  in  the  original  edition. 
6 


xviii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

his  pursuits.  Mason  says,  "  Pie  catalogued 
and  made  occasional  short  remarks  on  the  pic- 
tures which  he  saw.  He  wrote  a  minute 
description  of  everything  he  saw  in  his  tour 
from  Rome  to  Naples,  as  also  of  the  environs 
of  Rome,  Florence,  &c.  They  abound  with 
many  uncommon  remarks  and  pertinent  classi- 
cal quotations."*  Most  of  his  journals  and 
collections  I  have  had  an  opportunity  of  see- 
ing, and  I  printed  his  "  Criticisms  on  Archi- 
tecture and  Painting,  &c.  during  a  Tour  in 
Italy,"  which  show  at  once  the  great  attention 
he  paid  to  the  subject,  and  an  extraorchnary 
knowledge  of  ancient  and  modern  art  at  so 
early  a  period  of  life.  At  Florence  he  made 
a  collection  of  music,  chiefly  embracing  the 
works  of  Cimarosa,  Pergolesi,  and  the  old 
Italian  masters,  with  notices  also  of  the  chief 

*  These  remarks  came  into  possession  of  his  friend 
Mr.  Chute,  of  the  Vine,  in  Hampshire,  and  were  prob- 
ably given  to  him  by  Gray.  They  are  printed  in  the 
fourth  volume  of  the  Aldine  Edition  of  Gray's  poems. 
Others  of  the  same  kind  I  also  possess.  There  is  in  MS. 
in  my  possession  a  copy  of  the  Wilton  Gallery,  very 
amusing,  and  filled  with  critical  remarks  b}'  Gray  on  the 
statues;  and  I  have  also  his  criticisms  on  the  pictures 
then  in  Kensington  Palace.  The  only  collection  he  him- 
self made  in  works  of  art  was  in  prints. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xix 

singers  of  the  time,  and  the  operas  io  which 
they  appeared,  and  the  arias  they  sung.'*  His 
collection  of  engravings  also  is  still  in  exist- 
ence ;  at  the  bottom  of  each  he  had  written 
an  account  of  the  picture  and  the  engraver, 
with  a  reference  to  the  work  of  art  that  de- 
scribes it.  I  do  not  know  any  branch  of  the 
Fine  Arts  which  escaped  his  observation,  or  in 
which  he  was  not  a  proficient. 

In  May,  after  a  visit  to  the  Frascati,  and 
the  Cascades  of  Tivoli,  he  sent  his  beautiful 
Alcaic  ode  to  West,  and  afterwards  his  poem 
on  the  Gaurus.  He  also  commenced  his  Latin 
poem,  De  Principiis  Cogitandi.  He  then  set 
off  with  Walpole,  on  the  24th  April,  1741,  for 
BoloOTa  and  Recrorio,  at  the  latter  of  which 
towns  a  serious  difference  took  place  between 
them,  and  they  parted.  The  exact  cause  of 
this  quarrel  has  never  been  ascertained.  I 
have  been  told,  on  what  appears  good  author- 
ity, that  Walpole,  suspecting  Gray  of  having 
written  home  something  to  his  disadvantage, 
broke  the  seal  of  a  letter.  But  the  matter 
will   never   be    entirely    cleared    up.     Mason 

*  These  books  of  mnsic  were  in  six  lai-fre  volumes, 
and  were  sol  1  at  the  s.ile  of  his  library  in  IS-io. 


XX  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

suys,  tliat  Walpole  enjoined  liim  to  charge 
him  ("Walpole)  with  the  chief  blame  of  the 
quarrel,  confessing  that  more  attention,  and 
complaisance,  and  deference  to  a  warm  friend- 
ship, superior  judgment,  and  prudence  might 
have  prevented  a  rupture.  And  after  Gray's 
death  he  also  wrote  to  the  same  person  :  "  I  am 
sorry  I  had  a  fault  towards  him.  It  does  not 
wound  me  to  own  it ;  and  it  must  be  believed 
when  I  allow  it,  that  not  he,  but  I  myself  was 
in  the  wrong."  Such  is  Walpole's  account. 
When  Mr.  NichoUs  once  endeavored  to  learn 
from  Gray  his  account  of  the  difference,  he 
said,  "  Walpole  w^as  the  son  of  the  first  minis- 
ter, and  you  may  easily  conceive  that  on  this 
account  he  might  assume  an  air  of  superiority, 
or  do  and  say  something  which  perhaps  I  did 
not  bear  as  well  as  I  ought."  Mr.  Bryant's 
opinion,  which  is  worthy  of  attention,  will  be 
found  in  his  letter.  I  think  the  following 
passage,  in  a  letter  from  Walpole  to  Conway, 
shortly  after  Walpole  returned  to  England,  in 
1741,  is  more  to  his  credit  than  anything  else 
that  has  appeared  relating  to  this  unhappy 
rupture  of  friendship.  "  Before  I  thank  you 
I'or  mvself,  I  must  thank  vou  for  the  excessive 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xxi 

good-nature  you  showed  in  writing  to  poor 
Gray.  I  am  less  impatient  to  see  you,  as  I 
find  you  are  not  the  least  altered,  but  have  the 
same  friendly  regard  for  him  as  you  always 
had."  It  will  be  recollected  that  Mr.  Con  way 
travelled  with  Gray  and  Walpole  in  17o9,  and 
separated  from  them  at  Geneva.  Certain  it 
is,  that  the  wound  of  v/hat  Johnson  calls 
"  lacerated  friendship  "  never  healed.  Gray 
never  after  visited  him  with  cordiality,  or 
spoke  of  him  with  much  esteem.  Mr.  Cole 
says,  and  his  account  is  supported  by  Gray's 
own  letters,  that  "  when  matters  were  made  up 
between  Walpole  and  Gray,  and  the  former 
asked  Gray  to  Strawberry  Hill,  when  he 
came,  he  without  any  ceremony  told  Walpole 
that  he  came  to  visit  as  far  as  civility  required, 
but  by  no  means  had  he  come  there  on  the 
term,  of  his  former  friendship,  whicli  he  had 
totally  cancelled."* 

*  See  Gray's  letter  to  Wharton,  from  Stoke,  Nov.  16, 
1744-5.  Vol.  II.  p.  174,  Ed.  Aid.,  where  his  visit  of  rec- 
onciliation is  graphically  described.  Their  friend  Ashe- 
ton  seems  in  some  degree  to  have  been  mixed  up  with  it, 
and  with  him  he  appears  to  have  maintained  afterwards 
no  friendly  communications.  A  friend  of  mine  bought  a 
book  at  Gray's  sale,  in  which  was  written  "  Donum  Anil- 
cissiml  Hon  Walpole," — but  the  word  Amicisslmi  was 
partially  erased. 


xxii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

When  he  parted  from  Walpoie,  Gray  went 
immediately  to  Venice,  and  returned  through 
Padua  and  Milan,  IbUowing  nearly  the  same 
road  homewards  through  France  that  he  hiid 
travelled  before.  He  again  visited  the  Grantie 
Chartreuse,  the  wild  and  sublime  scenery  of 
which  had  jDreviously  been  so  strongly  im- 
pressed upon  him ;  and  in  the  album  of  the 
fathers  he  wrote  his  Alcaic  Ode,  his  first  lyr- 
ical piece  in  Latin.  When  I  spent  a  da}"  at 
the  monastery,  I  looked  over  the  album,  and 
inquired  anxiously  for  the  original  entry,  but 
found  that  it  had  long  disappeared.  The  col- 
lectors, who  like  vultures  followed  the  French 
revolutionary  armies  over  the  Continent,  swept 
away  everything  that  ignorance  and  barbarity 
had  previously  spared.  Without  entering  into 
any  detailed  criticism  on  Gray's  Latin  poetry, 
I  may  here  observe,  tlmt  if  this  ode,  or  any  of 
Gray's  lyrical  Latin  poetry,  be  examined  with 
a  critical  accurac}',  it  will  be  found  often  devi- 
ating widely  from  the  established  laws  wliich 
govern  the  metre ;  and  in  the  collection  of 
Gray's  Latin  poetry  which  is  j)rinted  iii  the 
first  volume  of  his  cohecled  works,  I  liave 
i::ivcu,  I  believe,  a  tolerably  iaithfal  account  of 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xx':"! 

the  errors  wliieh  may  be  found  in  them.  This 
certainly  will  impair  the  pleasure  with  which 
a  scholar  will  read  them ;  but  he  will  still  ap- 
preciate and  admire  the  fine  poetical  spirit  and 
picturesque  imagery  of  such  stanzas  as  the 
following :  — 

"  Prcesentioi'em  et  conspichnus  Deum 
Per  invias  rupe>:,  fera  per  jnga,* 
Clivosque  prseruptos,  sonantes 
Inter  aqua*,  iiemorumque  noctem,"  &c. 

Gray  returned  to  England  in  September, 
1741,  and  two  months  after  his  arrival  his 
father  died,  his  constitution  being  worn  out  by 
repeated  attacks  of  the  gout.  To  th.e  friend 
who  condoled  with  Pope  on  liis  father's  death, 
he  answered  in  the  pious  language  of  Eury- 
alus,  —  ''Genitrix  est  mihi";  and  Gray,  in  like 

*  This  second  line  is  very  faulty,  from  the  absence  of 
the  caesura  in  the  right  place.  Mr.  Canon  Tate  also  ob- 
serves "  that  Gray,  though  exquisite  in  the  observance  of 
the  nicest  beauty  in  the  Hexameters  in  Yirgil,  showed 
himself  strangely  unacquainted  Avith  the  rules  of  Hor- 
ace's Lyric  verse.  What  a  pity  it  is,  that  the  noble,  en- 
gaging, and  pathetic  interest  of  the  Ode  on  the  Grand 
Chartreuse  should  be  inteirupted  by  a  line  so  jarring  and 
bad  as  the  second  of  these  below,  '  Per  invias  rnpes,'  &c., 
in  a  stanza  otherwi'<e  of  such  first-rate  excellence."  Vide 
Obs.  on  the  Metres  of  Horace,  p.  200  ;  and  Aid.  Ed.  of 
Gray,  pp.  191  and  199. 


xxiv  LIFE   or   GRAY. 

circumstaiue?,  felt  no  less  the  pleasure  of 
watching  over  the  happiness  of  a  j)arent  so 
deservedly  beloved  by  him.  With  a  siikiII  for- 
tune, which  her  husband's  imprudence  and 
misfortunes  had  much  impaired,  Mrs.  Gray 
and  a  maiden  sister  retired  to  the  house  of 
]Mrs.  Rogers,  another  sister,  at  Stoke,  near 
Windsor.  But  though  it  is  not  mentioned 
by  his  biographers,  1  presume  that,  j)revious 
to  the  family  of  Mrs.  Rogers  removing  to 
Stoke,  they  had  lived  at  Burnham  ;  for  Mr. 
Cole  says,  in  his  manuscript  memoi-anda,  that 
"  Gray's  uncle,  Mr.  Rogers,  lived  at  a  house 
in  my  parish,  called  Cant's  Hall,  a  small  house, 
and  not  far  from  the  common."  And  again, 
in  a  note  on  a  passage  in  the  ninth  letter  of 
the  first  section  of  the  life,  where  Gray  says, 
"I  arrived  safe  at  my  uncle's,"  Cole  adds,  "at 
Burnham,  my  living.  Mi'.  Rogers  was  an 
attorney,*  lived  at  Britwell,  in  Burnham  par- 
ish, and  lies  buried  m  my  church."  After 
his  death,  it  is  probable  that  the  family  re- 
moved to  Stoke.  The  house,  which  is  now 
called  West-End,  lies  in  a  secluded  part  of  the 

*  Mii=ou  therefore  is  in  error  in  calii'ig  Mr.  Rogers  a 
Ciergvin  111. 


LTFE    OF   GRAY.  xxv 

parish,  on  the  road  to  Fulmer.  It  remained 
up  to  a  late  period  in  the  same  state  in  which 
it  was  when  Gray  resided  there.  It  lias  lately 
Deen  much  enlarged  and  adorned  by  its  pres- 
ent proprietor  ;  but  the  room  called  "  Gray's  " 
is  still  preserved;*  and  a  shady  walk  round 
an  adjoining  meadov.s  with  a  summer-house 
on  the  rising  land,  are  still  remembered  as 
favorite  places  frequented  by  the  poet. 

When  Gray  returned  to  England,  it  was 
necessary  that  he  should  choose  some  profes- 
sion ;  and  that  of  the  law  was  tlie  one  which 
he  selected.  "  Between  that,"  he  writes  to 
West,  "  which  you  had  pitched  upon,  and  the 
other  two,  it  was  impossible  to  balance  long : 
examples  show  me  that  it  is  not  absolutely 
necessary  to  be  a  blockhead  to  succeed  in  this 
profession."  As  he  saw  his  fortune  was  so 
slender  as  not  to  enable  him  to  take  the  usual 
course  of  residing  in  one  of  the  Inns  of  Court, 
and  yet  unwilling  to  hurt  the  feelings  of  his 
mother  by  appearing  entirely  to  forsake  liis 
profession,  he  changed,  or  pretended  to  change, 
the  line  of  study,  and  went  to  Cambridge  to 

*  The  room  called  "  Gray's "  is  distinguished  by  a 
small  balcony. 


X  .viii  Lirr.   OF  (:n.\  v. 

r.iul  Dryden.  lit;  llieii  gives  some  instances 
from  Dryden,  wlio  is  certainly  a  great  master 
of  onr  poetical  tongue,  and  who  alioiinds  with 
idioniatical  expressions;  but  such  e.\i)res.sions 
as  "  miisefal  mopinys,  foiled  doddurd  oaks,  rt-tch- 
less  of  Unvs^''  and  many  others  which  he  gives, 
appear  to  me  rather  exceptions  to  the  gi-ace 
and    harmony  of   Dryden's   style    than    orna- 

"  S:iy  :it  whiit  ]):irt  of  nature  will  they  stand?  "  ix.  5G. 
sliiiid,  loi-  stop  or  st'iy. 

"  Tims  ridm-  of  liis  lienltli,  h'\?  fortune,  friends. 
And  fame,  this  lord  of  useless  tlioussvnds  ends." 

i: p.  iii.  332. 
a  singular  expression,  "  victor  of  his  health,  his  friends," 
&c. 

•'  Well-natured  Garth  inflamed  with  early  praise." 

Proi.  to  Sat.  137. 
for  wnnt  of  the  insertion  of  "  me  "  after  •'  inflamed,"  the 
verb  is  mistaken  for  the  passive  voice,  and  is  applied  to 
Garth  himself. 

"  What  will  it  leave  me,  if  it  snatch  my  rhyme?  " 

Imit.  of  Horace,  77. 
snatch  is  put  for  ^^  steal  from  me,  take  away''\  but  steal 
had  been  used  just  before. 

"  There  are  who  have  not  -,  and  thank  Heaven  there  are 
Who,  if  thev  have  not,  think  not  worth  their  care  " 

Ihid.  V.  262. 
i.  e.  think  them  not  worth  their  care. 

"  Whose  seats  the  weary  travellers  repose  " ; 
t.  e.  on  whose  seats. 

And  many  others  might  be  mentioned  in  the  works  of 
this  correct  poet  •,  so  difficult  is  the  art,  even  to  the  most 
skilful  workmen. 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xxlx 

meutrf  of  it.  I  also  think  t;;at  the  propriety 
of  the  introduction  of  antique  ex^jressions,  and 
obsolete  words,  will  much  depend  on  the  na- 
ture of  the  poem,  and  even  on  the  structure 
of  the  verse ;  and  that  unless  used  with  great 
caution,  and  selected  with  taste  and  care,  they 
will  give  the  composition  the  character  of  imi- 
tation, which  would  be  injurious  to  its  effect. 
The  language  of  Shakespeare  m:iy  be  more 
picturesque  and  poetical  tiian  that  of  Addi-ou 
and  Rowe,  but  the  propriety  and  advantage 
of  adapting  it  to  modern  composition  does  not 
appear  to  me  necessarily  to  follow. 

Mason,  in  a  note  on  this  passage  of  tlie  Let- 
ters, supports  Gray's  opinion,  and  considers 
"  that  following  these  rules  will  prevent  our 
poetry  from  falling  into  insipidity  " ;  as  if  fine 
thoughts  and  poetical  imagery,  however  ex- 
pressed, could  be  insipid.  But  INIason's  own 
poetry  was  formed  on  this  model,  and  its  arti- 
ficial charactei',  and  flowery  and  redundant 
expressions,  were  the  neces.-ary  results.  In 
some  correspondence  between  Gray  and  Mason, 
which  I  possess  in  manuscript,  the  former  very 
severely  criticised  the  artificial  structure  of 
Mason's  poetry.     He  says,  "  Pray  have  done 


xxvi  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

take  his  degree  in  civil  law.  "  But  the  nar- 
rowness of  his  circumstances,"  says  Mr.  Ma- 
son, "  was  not  the  only  thing  that  distressed 
liira  at  this  period.  He  had  lost  the  friend- 
ship of  Mr.  Walpole  abroad ;  he  had  also  lost 
much  time  in  his  travels,  a  loss  which  applica- 
tion could  not  easily  retrieve,  when  so  severe 
and  laborious  a  study  as  that  of  the  common 
law  was  to  be  the  object  of  it ;  and  he  well 
knew,  that  whatever  improvement  he  might 
have  made  in  this  interval,  either  in  taste  or 
science,  such  imj)rovement  would  have  stood 
him  in  little  stead  with  regard  to  his  present 
situation  and  exigencies."  That  Gi"ay,  how- 
ever, had  entirely  relinquished  all  thoughts  of 
his  jDrofession  seems  to  a])pear  from  a  letter 
to  We.st.  "  Alas  for  one,"  he  writes,  "  who 
has  nothing  to  do  but  to  amuse  himself!  I 
believe  my  amusements  are  as  little  amusing 
as  most  folks'.  But  no  matter :  it  makes  the 
hours  pass,  and  is  better  than 

He  now  began  his  tragedy  of  Agrippina, 
which  Mason  thinks  was  suggested  by  a  favor- 
able impression  left  on  his  mind  by  a  repre- 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xxvii 

sentatiou  of  the  Britauniciis  of  Racine.  His 
friend  objected  to  the  length  of  Agrippina's 
speech ;  and  the  fragment  is  now  published, 
not  exactly  as  Gray  left  it,  but  as  it  was  altered 
by  Mason  from  the  suggestion  of  West.  The 
same  friend  also  objected  to  the  style,  which 
he  thought  too  antiquated.  "I  will  not,"  he 
says,  "decide  what  style  is  fittest  for  the  Eng- 
lish stage ;  but  I  should  rather  choose  one  that 
bordered  upon  Cato  than  upon  Shakespeare." 
To  this  Gray  answered :  "  As  to  matter  of 
style,  I  have  this  to  say,  the  language  of  the 
age  is  never  the  language  of  poetry ^  excepting 
among  the  French,  whose  verse,  when  the 
thoughts  or  image  does  not  support  it,  differs 
in  nothing  from  prose,"  &e.  And  he  then 
supports  this  opinion  by  saying  that  all  poets 
have  enriched  their  language  by  foreign  idi- 
oms, expressions,  and  sometimes  words  of  their 
own  composition  and  invention  ;  that  »Shake- 
speare  and  Milton  had  been  great  creators  in 
this  way,  and  none  more  licentious  tlian  Pope* 


*  Some  of  Pope's  expressions,  in  his  attempts  to  com- 
press his  sense,  are  such  as  are  not  warranted  by  the 
structure  of  our  language,  and  cannot  be  approved  ;  such 
as,  ex.  gr.,  Essay  on  ]Man  :  — 

"  Self-love,  the  L-pring  of  motion,  acts  the  soul."  ii.  59. 
acts,  for  actuates. 


XXX  LIFE   OF   CRAY. 

with  '  pil'd  stores,  and  coral  floors,' "  &c.  And 
of  another  poem,  he  observes,  "  The  line  which 
I  like  best  in  your  sonnet  is  the  simplest,  — '  So 
to  beguile  my  solitary  way.'  *  It  looks  as  if 
you  could  live  at  Aston,  which  is  not  true ; 
but  that 's  not  my  affair."  If  I  recollect  rightly, 
there  is  but  one  line  in  the  Elegy  on  Lady 
Coventry  which  he  seemed  much  to  approve, 
and  that  was  one  in  which  the  thought  and 
expression  were  most  easy,  natural,  and  just. 
"  Come  here,  he  adds,  and  I  will  read  and 
criticise 

"  Your  amorous  ditties  all  a  winter's  day." 

Gray  in  his  academical  leisure  employed 
himself  very  dihgently  in  the  perusal  of  the 
ancient  authors.  He  mentions  that  he  is  read- 
ing Thucydides,  Theocritus,  and  Anacreon. 
He  translated  some  parts  of  Propertius,t  wrote 
an  Heroic  Epistle  in  Latin,  and  in  the  summer 
vacation,  when  he  retired  to  Stoke,  sent  his 
''  Ode  to  Spring  "  to  West ;  but  this  letter  did 

*  MS.  Letter. 

t  'I'his  he  sent  to  West,  May  8,  1736,  with  a  Letter  be- 
ginning: "My  letter  enjoys  itself  before  it  is  opened,  in 
imagining  the  confusion  j'ou  '11  be  in,  when  you  hear 
that  a  coach  and  six  has  stopped  at  Christ-Church  gates, 
and  desires  to  speak  with  you,"  kc.  (^IS.) 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xxxi 

not  arrive  in  Hertfordshire  till  after  the  death 
of  his  beloved  friend.  West  died  soon  after 
his  Letter  to  Gray,  which  concludes,  Vale  et 
Vive  paullsper  cum  vivis ;  "  so  little,"  says 
Mason,  "  was  this  amiable  youth  then  aware 
of  the  short  time  that  he  himself  would  be 
numbered  among  the  living."* 

I  shall  here  insert  a  very  judicious  criticism 
by  the  late  Lord  Grenville,  on  Johnson's  cen- 
sure of  the  expression,  in  the  "  Ode  to  Spring," 
of  "  honeyed  spring  "  ;  particularly  as  the  Book 
in  which  it  appeared  was  only  privately  print- 
ed, and  consequently  is  known  but  to  a  few 

*  West  resided  at  Pope's,  near  Hatfield,  and  Avas  buried 
in  the  ciiancel  of  Hatfield  Chnrch.  He  died  June  4th, 
1742,  \n  the  26th  year  of  his  age.  His  poems  have  never 
been  fully  collected.  I  find  among  Gray's  Manuscript 
Papers  a  list  of  them,  made  out  I  think  in  IMason's  Avrit- 
ing;  and  there  is  another  among  the  MSS.  at  Pembroke 
College  See  in  a  Note  to  the  Life  of  Gray  in  the  Aid. 
Ed.  Vol.  I.  p.  xvi.  an  account  of  them  more  complete  than 
any  previous  one.  Mr.  Chalmers  omitted  his  name  en- 
tirely ill  his  Edition  of  the  British  Poets.  The  four  con- 
cluding lines  of  the  Sonnet  on  the  Death  of  West  are  as 
tender  and  elegant  in  expression  as  the  opening  quatrain 
appears  to  me  defective :  — 

"  The  fields  to  all  their  wonted  tribute  bear; 

To  warm  their  little  loves  the  birds  complain 
I  fruitless  mourn  to  him,  that  caimot  hear: 

And  weep  the  more,  because  I  weep  in  vain." 


xxxii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

readers.*      " '  There  has  of  late  arisen,'  says 
Johnson  in  the  Life  of  Gray,  '  a  practice  of  giv- 
ing to  adjectives  derived  from  substantives  the 
termination  of  participles,  such  as  the  mdtured 
pldiit,  the  daisied  bunk  ;  but  I  am  sorry  to  see, 
in  the  lines  of  a  scholar  like  Gray,  the  honeyed 
spring  ! '     A  scholar  like  Johnson  might  have 
remembered,  that  mellitus  is  used  by  Catullus, 
Cicero,  and  Horace,  and  that  honeyed  itself  is 
found  both  in  Shakespeare  and  Milton.    But  to 
say  nothing  of  the  general  piinciples  of  all  lan- 
guages, how  could  the  writer   of  an  iMiglish 
Dictionary  be  ignorant,  that  the  ready  conver- 
sion of  our  substantives  into  verbs,  participles, 
and  participial  adjectives  is  of  the  very  ecsence 
of  our  tongue,  derived  to  it  from  its  Saxon 
origin,  and  a  main  source  of  its  energy  and 
richness  ?      First.    In   the    instances   of  verbs 
and  participles,  this  is  too  obvious  to  be  dwelt 
upon  for  a  moment.     Such  verbs  as  to  ploiuih, 
to  ivitness,  to  sing,  to  ornament,  together  v.itli 
the  participles  regularly  formed  from  them,  are 
among  the  commonest  words  in  our  language. 
Shakespeare,    in    a   ludicrous    but   elxpressive 
phrase,  has  converted  even  a  proper  name  into 

*  See  Lord  Grenville's  Nufjce  MetiicoB.  4!:o. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xxxiii 

a  participle  of  this  description  :  '  Petrucliio,  he 
says,  is  Kated'  The  epithet  of  a  hectoring  fel- 
low is  a  more  familiar  instance  of  a  participle 
similarly  formed,  though  strongly  distorted  in 
its  use  to  express  menacing.,  almost  the  opposite 
of  its  original. 

"  Secondly.  These  participles  of  verbs  thus 
derived,  like  all  other  participles  when  used  to 
denote  habitual  attributes,  pass  into  adjectives. 
Winged,  feathered,  thatched,  painted,  and  innu- 
merable others,  are  indiscriminately  used  in 
both  these  forms,  according  to  the  construction 
of  the  sentence  and  its  context.  And  the  tran- 
sition is  so  easy,  that  in  many  passages  it  may 
be  doubted  to  which  of  these  two  parts  of  speech 
such  wor.ls  should  properly  be  leferred. 

"  llnrdly.  Between  these  participial  adje:- 
tives  and  those  which  Johnson  condemns  the -e 
is  the  closest  analogy.  Both  are  derived  fro.n 
substantives,  and  both  have  the  termination 
of  j)articiples.  The  latter,  such  words,  for  in- 
stance, as  honeyed,  daisied,  tapestried,  slipper  d, 
and  the  like,  diifer  from  the  others  only  in  not 
being  referable  to  any  yet  established  verb ; 
but  so  little  material  is  the  diiFerence,  that 
there  is  hardly  one  of  these  cases  in  which  the 


xxxiv  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

corresponding  verb  might  not,  if  it  were  wanted, 
be  found  and  used  in  strict  conformity  ^^th 
the  genius  of  our  language.  Sugared  is  an 
epithet  frequent  in  our  ancient  poetry,  and  its 
use  was  probably  anterior  to  that  of  the  verb, 
of  which  it  now  appears  to  be  a  particii)le  ; 
but  that  verb  has  since  been  fully  adopted  in 
our  language.  We  now  sugar  our  cups,  as 
formerly  our  ancestors  spiced  and  drugged 
them ;  and  no  reason  can  be  assigned  why, 
if  such  was  our  practice,  we  might  not  also 
honey  them,  with  equal  propriety  of  speech. 
"  Fourthly.  On  the  same  analogy,  we  form 
another  numerous  and  very  valuable  class  of 
adjectives,  compound  epithets,  derived  like  the 
others  from  substantives,  and  like  them  termi- 
nating as  participles,  but  having  prefixed  to 
them  the  signification  of  some  additional  attri- 
bute. Such  are,  in  common  ?>])Qqc\\,  four-footed, 
open-hearted,  short-sighted,  good-natured,  and 
the  like.  In  Poetry  v/e  trace  them  from  the 
well-envyned  frankelein  of  Chaucer,  through 
the  most  brilliant  pages  of  all  his  successors, 
to  the  present  hour.  What  readers  of  Shake- 
Si>eare  and  Milton  need  to  be  reminded  of 
ere ii-ha tided,  high-flighted,  trumpet-tongued  ;  or 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xxxv 

0^ full-voiced,  flowery-hiiUed,  ?iXidi fiery-wheeled'^ 
All  these  expressions,  and  beautiful  combina- 
tions, Johnson's  canon  would  banish  from  our 
language.  The  criticism  therefore  recoils  on 
himself.  The  Poet  has  followed  the  usage  of 
his  native  tongue,  and  the  example  of  its  best 
masters.  The  Grammarian  appears  unac- 
quainted both  with  its  practice  and  its  prin- 
ciples. The  censure  seems  only  to  betray  the 
vile  passions,*  which  in  a  very  powerful  and 
well-intentioned,  but  a  very  ill-regulated  mind, 
the  success  of  a  contemporary  had  been  permit- 
ted to  excite.  The  true  spirit  indeed  of  this  criti- 
cism appears  with  no  less  force  in  what  almost 

*  Compare  the  following  passage  from  another  writer, 
on  the  same  person  and  subject  :  "  To  myself,  much  as  I 
admire  his  great  and  various  merits,  both  as  a  critic  and 
a  writer,  human  nature  never  appears  in  a  more  humili- 
ating form,  than  when  I  read  his  '  Lives  of  the  Poets,'  a 
performance  which  exhibits  a  more  faithful,  expressive, 
and  curious  picture  of  the  author  than  all  the  portraits 
attempted  by  his  biographer  ;  and  which,  in  this  point 
of  view,  compensates  fully,  by  the  moral  lesson  it  may 
suggest,  for  the  critical  errors  which  it  sanctions.  The 
errors,  alas!  are  not  such  as  any  one  who  has  perused 
his  imitations  of  Juvenal  can  place  to  the  account  of 
a  bad  taste,  but  such  as  had  their  root  in  weaknesses, 
which  a  noble  mind  would  be  still  more  unwilling  to 
acknowledge."  See  D.  Stewart's  Philosophical  Essay, 
4to,  p.  491. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY. 


immediately  follows,  when  Johnson  attempts 
to  ridicule  a  passage,  which  few  other  men 
have  read  without  delight,  —  Gray's  beautiful 
invocation  of  the  Thames  in  the  '  Ode  on  Eton 
College ' ;  '  Say,  Father  Thames,'  &c.  '  This 
is  useless,'  he  says,  '  and  puerile :  Father 
Thames  had  no  better  means  of  knowing  than 
he  himself!'  He  forgets  his  own  address  to 
the  Nile,  in  Rasselas,  for  a  pui-pose  very  simi-^ 
lar ;  and  he  expects  his  readers  to  forget  one 
of  the  most  affecting  pas^aws  in  Virgil.  Fa- 
ther Thames  might  well  know  as  much  of  the 
sports  of  boys  as  the  great  Father  of  Waters 
knew  of  the  discontents  of  men,  or  the  Tiber 
itself  of  the  designs  of  Marcellus." 

I  would  not  violate  that  reverence  due  to  so 
great  a  man  as  Dr.  Johnson  ;  but  I  must  be- 
lieve that  very  undeniable  prejudice  existed  in 
his  mind  with  regard  to  Gray,  though  how  it 
arose  I  am  at  a  loss  to  say.  "  Sir,  he  is  a 
dull  man,"  he  said  to  a  friend,  "  in  every  way : 
he  is  dull  in  writing,  and  dull  in  conception." 
All  that  I  shall  say  to  this  extraordinary  asser- 
tion is,  that  the  public  voice  has  acquitted  the 
poet  of  dulness,  for  no  quality  is  less  easily 
pardoned  ;  and  as  to  his  Letters,  they  abound 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xxxvii 

in  humor  more  than  those  of  any  other  writer 
in  this  country.  I  speak  of  his  original  and 
authentic  correspondence,  of  which  I  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  seeing  nearly  the  whole 
that  exists,'  for  Mason  has,  in  fact,  with  a 
timid  and  most  unnecessary  circumspection, 
omitted  much  of  the  wit  and  humor,  as  he 
himself  owns,  "  because  from  their  personal- 
ities, or  from  some  other  local  circumstances, 
they  did  not  seem  so  well  adapted  to  hit  the 
public  taste." 

In  the  autumn  of  1742  Gray  composed  "The 
Ode  on  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College,"  * 
and  "  The  Hymn  to  Adversity  "' ;  the  "  Elegy 
in  a  Country  Churchyard"  was  also  com- 
menced. We  have  heard  the  expression  in 
the  twelfth  line  of  the  first  Ode, 

*  The  Ode  on  Eton  College  was  first  published  in  folio, 
in  1747,  and  appeared  again  in  Dodsley's  Collection,  Vol. 
II.  p.  267,  in  which  the  name  of  the  author  of  the  Hymn 
to  Adversity  first  appeared,  Dodsley,  Vol.  IV.  together 
with  the  Elegy,  and  not,  as  Mason  says,  with  the  three 
foregoing  Odes,  which  are  printed  in  the  second  volume. 
In  Ma.^on's  selection  the  Hymn  is  called  an  Ode,  but  the 
title  HyiTin  is  given  by  the  author.  The  motto  from 
iEschylus  is  not  in  Dodsley.  The  "  Ode  on  Spring  " 
appeared  in  Dodsley's  Collection,  Vol.  II.  p.  27,  under  the 
simple  title  of  Ode.  Dr.  Joseph  Wharton  informs  us,  that 
little  or  no  notice  Wiis  taken  of  this  Ode  on  Eton  College 
on  its  first  appearance. 


xxxvii:  LIFE   OF   CRAY. 

"  Ah !  fields  beloved  in  vain," 

considered  as  obscure,  and  not  easily  inter- 
preted ;  but  the  Poem  is  written  in  the  char- 
acter of  one  who  contemplates  this  life  as  a 
scene  of  misfortune  and  sorrow, 

'AvflpwTTO?  LKavr\  npo(})d<n<;  eis  to  Svarvxen', 

from  whose  fatal  power  the  brief  sunshine  of 
youth  is  supposed  to  be  exempt.  The  fields 
are  "  beloved  "  as  the  scene  of  youthful  pleas- 
ures, and  as  affording  the  promise  of  happiness 
to  come ;  but  this  promise  never  was  fulfilled. 
Fate,  which  dooms  man  to  misery,  soon  over- 
clouded these  opening  prospects  of  delight. 
That  is  "  in  vain  beloved  "  which  does  not  re- 
alize the  expectations  it  held  out.  No  fruit  but 
that  of  disappointment  has  followed  the  blos- 
soms of  a  thoughtless  hope.  The  happhiess  of 
youth  must  be  pronounced  imjierfect,  when  not 
succeeded  by  the  prosperity  of  future  life, 
which,  according  to  the  poet.  Fate  has  decreed 
to  man :  for  this  "  youthful  progeny "  is  de- 
scribed as  sporting  on  the  brink  of  misery. 
The  "  murderous  band,"  the  ministers  of  mis- 
fortune, are  already  in  ambush  to  seize  their 
little   victims ;    but    a    little    period    now    of 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xxxLx 

thoughtless  joy  is  allowed  to  them,  and  then 
they  will  become  a  prey  to  those  passions 
which  are  the  vultures  that  tear  the  mind,  and 
those  diseases  which  are  the  painful  family  of 
death.  The  fields  therefore,  which  are  the 
brief  abode  of  youthful  sports,  are  "  in  vain 
beloved,"  as  having  promised  happiness,  which, 
from  the  very  nature  of  man,  and  the  tenure 
by  which  he  holds  his  being,  could  not  be 
realized.  Such  is  the  interpretation  which  I 
give  to  the  line.  I  shall  only  fiirther  observe, 
that  the  repetition  thrice  of  the  word  shade  in 
the  opening  lines  is  very  ungraceful ;  and  that 
to  "  chase  the  rolling  circle's  speed  "  seems  to 
me  both  an  incorrect  expression,  and  ungram- 
matical  circumlocution.  We  neither  call  a 
hoop  a  "  circle,"  nor  do  we  speak  of  "  chasing 
a  speed."  *  Some  parts  of  the  Ode,  however, 
both  in  the  nature  of   the  thought  and  sim- 

*  In  the  original  manuscript  the  line  stood, 

"  To  chase  the  hoop's  elusive  speed  " ; 

which  no  doubt  was  altered  on  account  of  the  word  elu- 
sive.  In  another  manuscript  of  Gray's  writing  of  the 
same  Ode,  the  twenty-second  line  is, 

"  Full  many  a  smiling  race"; 

instead  of  sprightly. 


xl  LIi^^E    OF   CRAY. 

plicity  of  expression,  are  exquisitely  beautiful ; 
and  similar  praise  may  be  given  to  the  last 
stanza  of  the  "Hymn  to  Adversity."  It  will 
be  observed  by  those  who  read  the  Lyric  Po- 
etry with  the  careful  attention  wliich,  for  the 
high  excellence,  it  deserves,  that  in  the  rhymes 
they  are  unusually  fault}"  and  succinct.  This 
defect  was  acknowledged  and  lamented  by 
Gray ;  for  in  one  of  his  unpublished  letters  he 
says  that  he  endeavored  to  give  his  language 
that  clear,  concise,  and  harmonious  structure 
which  is  suited  to  Lyric  Poetry  ;  but  he  was 
always  impeded  by  the  difficulty  of  rhyming 
in  these  short  measures.  He  seems  to  have 
considered  accuracy  of  rhyme  of  inferior  con- 
sequence to  propriety  and  beauty  of  expres- 
sion ;  and  that  such  was  the  difficulty  of 
moulding  our  poetical  language,  when  the 
rhyming  sound,  or  consonance,  recurs  so  fre- 
quently, that  its  perfect  accuracy  is  not  attain- 
able. 

Gray's  residence  at  Cambridge  was  now 
continued,  not  from  any  partiality  to  the  place, 
but  partly  from  the  scantiness  of  his  income, 
which  prevented  his  living  in  London ;  and 
partly  no  doubt  for  the  convenience  which  its 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xU 

libraries  afforded.*  Original  composition  he 
almost  entirely  neglected;  but  he  was  dili- 
gently employed  in  a  regular  and  very  con- 
stant perusal  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  authors ; 
so  that  in  six  years  he  had  read  all  the  writers 
of  eminence  in  those  languages,  digesting  and 
examining  their  contents,  marking  their  pecu- 
liarities, and  noting  their  con-upt  and  ditficult 
passages.  Many  of  these  learned  and  criti- 
cal commonplace-books  exist  in  the  library  of 
Pembroke  College ;  many  others  I  have  seen, 
all  showing  very  curious  and  accurate  scholar- 
ship, particularly  those  on  the  Greek  historians 
and  orators ;  and  all  written  with  a  deUcacy 
and  accuracy  of  penman shij)  scarcely  inferior 

*  Dr.  Parr  thinks  that  Gray's  fixing  his  residence  at 
the  University,  '*  in  which  phice  he  adhered  so  steadily 
and  long,"  the  scantiness  of  his  fortune,  the  love  of  books, 
and  the  easy  access  he  had  to  them  in  many  libraries, 
will  hardly  be  considered  as  ^'■the  sole  motive.'"  But 
where  could  he  go?  Besides,  he  had  gradually  formed 
out  of  the  general  society  at  Cambridge,  an  acquaint- 
ance with  several  persons  of  intelligence  and  knowledge, 
and  a  friendship  with  a  few:  — 

'•  Nee  tu  credideris  urbance  commoda  vitse  ; 
QuEere  Nasonem  —  quaerit  et  ilia  taraen." 

The  unfinished  "  Hymn  to  Ignorance "  is  supposed  to 
have  been  written  in  1742,  when  he  returned  to  Cam- 
bridge from  abroad. 


xlii  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

to  the  productions  of  the  press.  He  formed 
for  his  own  instruction  a  collection  of  Greek 
Chronology,  which  extended  from  the  30th  to 
the  110th  Olympiad,  a  period  of  332  years, 
and  which  is  chiefly  designed  to  compare  the 
time  of  all  great  men,  their  writings,  and  trans- 
actions. "  I  have  read,"  he  writes,  "  Pausanias 
and  AthenjBus  all  through,  and  JEschyhis 
again.  I  am  now  in  Pindar  and  Lysias  ;  for  I 
take  verse  and  prose  together,  like  bread  and 
cheese."  In  the  margins  also  of  his  classical 
books,  various  critical  notices  are  inserted ; 
and  I  remember  many  conjectural  emendations 
in  his  copy  of  Barnes's  Euripides :  although 
critical  emendations  of  the  text  of  the  ancient 
authors  was  not  that  branch  of  scliolarship  in 
which  he  much  indulged.  To  the  works  of 
Plato  he  paid  great  attention,  as  may  be  seen 
in  the  extracts  from  the  Pembroke  MSS. 
printed  by  Mr.  Mathias ;  and  Mr.  Carey,  in 
his  translation  of  the  "  Birds  of  Aristophanes," 
has  ("one  justice  to  Gray's  accurate  erudition 
displayed  in  his  notes  on  that  author.* 

In  1744  the  difference  between  Walpole  and 

*  See  Preface  to  "  Carey's  Translation  of  the  Birds  of 
Aristophanes,"  p.  20;  and  Notes />assm. 


LTFE   OF  GRAY.  xllii 

Gray  was,  it  is  said,  adjusted  by  the  interfer- 
ence of  a  lady,  who  wished  well  to  both,  but 
with  whose  name  I  urn  not  acquainted ;  and 
soon  after,  as  a  kind  of  propitiation,  he  con- 
sented to  make  Walpole's  cat  immortal,  by  his 
well-known  little  Poem  on  her  death.  In  the 
third  stanza,  which  is  tlie  most  attractive  of 
the  whole,  he  originally  wrote, 

"  Two  beauteous  forms  were  seen  to  glide  "  ; 

which  he  afterwards  altered  to  angel  forms: 
but  in  my  opinion  the  former  reading  was  far 
preferable,  as  the  images  of  ''  angel "  and 
"  genii "  interfere  with  each  other,  and  bring 
different  associations  to  the  mind. 

Aboi'b  this  time  he  became  acquainted  w^th 
Mr.  Mason,  then  a  scholar  of  St.  John's  Col- 
lege. He  was  also  a  regular  correspondent  av  .Uli 
his  intimate  and  valued  friend,  Dr.  Wharton  ; 
and  he  seems  to  have  lived  on  terms  of  some 
familiarity  with  the  celebrated  Conyers  ]Mid- 
dleton,  whose  loss  he  afterwards  lamented. 
"  I  find  a  friend,"  he  says,  "  so  uncommon  a 
thing,  that  I  cannot  help  regretting  even  an 
old  acquaintance,  which  is  an  indifferent  like- 
ness of  it."     He  began  also  about  this  time  his 


xliv  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

Poem  "  On  the  Alliance  of  Education  and 
Government,"  but  he  never  wrote  above  a 
hundred  lines.  Mason  thinks  that  he  dropped 
it,  from  finding  his  best  thoughts  forestalled  by 
Montesquieu ;  but  some  time  after  he  had 
thoughts  of  resuming  his  plan,  and  of  dedicat- 
ing his  Poem  by  an  introductory  ode  to  Mon- 
tesquieu :  that  great  man's  death,  however, 
which  happened  in  1755,  made  him  drop  his 
design  finally.  But  Gray's  own  account  of 
tlie  matter  is  far  more  satisfactory.  When 
Mr.  Nicholls  once  asked  him  why  he  never 
finished  that  incomparable  fragment,  he  said, 
"  He  could  not "  ;  and  then  explained  himself 
in  words  to  this  effect :  "  I  have  been  used  to 
'Write  chiefly  Lyric  Poetry,  in  which,  the  Po- 
em K^eing  short,  I  have  accustomed  mjself  to 
fi'aish  my  part  with  care ;  and  as  this  has  been 
a  habit,  I  can  scarcely  write  in  any  other  man- 
ner. The  labor  of  this  in  a  long  Poem  would 
hardly  be  tolerable ;  and  if  accomplished,  it 
miglit  possibly  be  defective  in  effect,  by  want- 
ing the  chiaro-oscuror  * 

*  On  the  following  couplet  I  venture  to  make  an  ob- 
servation :  — 

"  With  grim  delight  the  brood  of  Winter  view 
A  brighter  dnv,  nnd  henv'n?  of  iizure  hue  ; 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xlv 

In  the  year  1749,  his  "  Elegy  m  a  Country 
Churchyard,"  the  finest  of*  all  his  poems,  re- 
ceived his  last  corrections,  was  communicated 
to  Walpole,  and  handed  about  in  manuscript 
with  great  applause.  It  was  so  popular,  that 
Gray  expressed  his  surprise  at  the  rapidity  of 
the  sale.  "  It  spread,"  said  Mason,  '•  at  first 
on  account  of  the  affecting  and  serious  interest 
of  the  subject;  just  like  Hervey's  Meditations 
on  the  Tombs.*     Soon  after  its  publication,  I 

Scent  the  new  fragrance  of  the  breathing  rose, 
And  qui  I f^l,he  pendent  vintage,  as  it  grows.''^ 

Firstly,  The  rose  is  not  the  peculiar  growtii  of  the  south- 
ern chniate,  and  consequently  its  fragrance  was  not  new 
to  the  invaders.  Secondly,  Gray  has,  in  taking  his  pic- 
ture from  Livy,  omitted  one  striking  circumstance,  which 
was  perhaps  of  all  the  most  important  inducement  for 
the  barbaric  invasion ;  and  substituted  the  fragrance  of 
flowers  in  its  room,  a  pleasure  little  attractive  to  the 
savage  race.  The  words  of  the  great  and  picturesque 
writer  are  as  follow:  "Earn  gentem  traditur  fama  dul- 
cedine  frugum,  maximeque  vini,  nova  turn  vo'upt-.re 
captam,  Alpes  transiisse."  Lib.  V.  c.  33.  Certainly  'A/ 
attraction  of  the  '''■golden  harvest''  would  have  beo.. 
greater  than  that  of  "  the  breathing  rose.'" 

*  We  may  mention  as  a  set-off  to  this  general  ap- 
plause, and  as  a  curiosity  of  criticism,  the  notice  of  it 
that  appeared  in  the  Monthly,  then  the  leading  Revie\i 
of  the  day:  "An  Elegy  written  in  a  Country  Church- 
yard, 4to,  Dodsley,  seven  pages.  The  excellence  of  this 
litt'.e  piece  amply  compensates  for  ito  want  of  qu.intiry  !  " 


xlvi  LIFE    GF   CRAY. 

remember  sitting  with  Mr.  Gray  in  his  Col- 
lege apartment :  he  exj^ressed  to  me  his  sur- 
prise :  I  replied,  '  Sunt  lacnjmce  rerum,  et 
mentem  mortalia  tangunt.^  He  paused  awhile, 
and,  taking  his  pen,  wrote  the  line  on  a  printed 
copy  of  it  lying  on  the  table.  '  This,'  said  he, 
'  shall  be  its  future  motto.'  '  Pity,'  said  I, 
'that  Dr.  Young's  "Night  Thoughts"  have 
preoccupied  it.'  '  So,'  replied  he,  '  indeed  it 
is.'  He  had  more  reason  to  think  I  had  hinted 
at  the  true  cause  of  its  popularity,  when  he 
found  how  different  a  reception  his  two  Odes 
had  met  with."t  Gray  told  Dr.  Gregory, 
"  that  the  Elegy  owed  all  its  popularity  en- 
tirely to  the  subject,  and  that  the  public  would 
have  received  it  as  well  if  it  had  been  writttn 
in  prose."  With  what  justice  this  may  be 
said,  regarding  the  want  of  poetical  taste  of 
that  day,  we  are  ignorant;  but  the  Elegy 
must  be  ranked  among  the  most  [/athetic  po- 
ems of  our  language.  The  subject  was  judi- 
ciously chosen,  being  one  that  attracted  general 
interest ;  and  it  is  adorned  also  with  noble 
images,  and  fine  poetical  invention.  I  know 
no  poem  that  was  quoted  in  different  works  so 

*  See  Mason's  Life  of  Whitehead,  p.  84. 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  xlvii 

soon  after  its  publication,  as  one  that  had  taken 
its  rank  at  once  among  the  classical  produc- 
tions of  the  country ;  and  it  has  ever  held  its 
station  among  the  most  popular  poems  in  the 
language.  How  long  Gray  was  employed  on 
the  composition  of  it,  I  do  not  know ;  but  it 
underwent  repeated  and  careful  revision.  I 
possess  many  curious  variations  from  the 
printed  text,  taken  from  a  copy  of  it  in  his 
own  writing,  from  which  a  few  may  be  se- 
lected :  — 

For,         "  Molest  her  ancient  solitary  reign," 

it  stooJ,  "  Molest  and  pry  into  her  ancient  reign." 

For,         "  The  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn," 
it  stood,  "  For  ever  sleep:  the  breezy  call  of  morn." 

For,         "  Or  climb  his  knees,  the  envied  kiss  to  share," 
it  stood,  "  Or  climb  his  knees,  the  coming  kiss  to  share." 

For,         "  Some  mute  inglorious  Milton  here  may  rest; 

Some  Cromwell,  guiltless  ofh is  country's  blood," 

it  stood,  ''  Some  mute  inglorious  Tully  here  mny  rest; 

Some  Caesar,  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood." 

For,         "  For  thee  who,  mindful  of  the  unhonored  dead, 
Dost  in  these  lines  their  artless  tale  i-elate, 
If  chance  by  lonely  contemplation  led, 
Some  kindred  spirit  shall  inquire  thy  fate," 

it  stood,  "  If  chance  that  e'er  some  pensive  spirit  more. 
By  sympathizing  musings  here  delayed, 


xlviii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

With  vain  though  kind  inquiries  still  explore 
Thy  ever  loved  haunt,  —  this  long  deserted  shade." 

And  many  others.  Most  of  them  are  very- 
improved  readings  ;  and  it  was  certainly  in  a 
happy  hour  that  he  substituted  Milton  and 
Cromwell  for  Gcesar  and  Tidly.  That  there 
are  many  faulty  expressions  in  it,  and  even 
some  defective  construction,  cannot  be  denied. 
In  the  line, 

"  Or  busy  housewife 7?Z?/  her  evening  carz^'' 

is  surely  an  expression  quite  unauthorized. 
And  the  following  has  always  appeared  to  me 
to  be  a  very  flat  and  unpoetical  expression, 

"  Nor  you,  ye  Proud,  impute  to  these  the  fault.''' 

Again, 

"  And  many  a  holy  text  around  she  strews, 
That  teach  the  rustic  moralist  to  die." 

As  this  construction  is  not,  as  it  now  stands, 
correct,  I  think  that  Gray  originally  wrote 
"ifo  teach,''  but  altered  it  afterward>,  euphonice 
gratia,  and  made  the  grammar  give  way  to  the 
sound.  However,  I  have  no  wish  to  pursue 
the  ungrateful  task  of  such  criticism  ;  and  after 
all,   I  yield  to  no  one  in   admiration  of  the 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xlix 

noble  spirit  and  thoughts  which  animate  this 
beautiful  production  of  genius.* 

Gray  now  superintended  an  edition  of  his 
Works,  printed  at  the  Strawberry  Hill  Press, 
by  Mr.  Walpole,  with  designs  by  Mr.  Richard 
Bentley,  the  only  son  of  the  great  Doctor 
Bentley,  and  at  that  time  the  friend  of  Wal- 
pole.  He  was  a  person  of  various  talent  and 
acquirements,  and  of  very  eccentric  conduct 
and  character.  In  tliis  edition,  "  The  Long 
Story,"  a  quaint  jocose  poem,  which  he  wrote 

*  Mason  wonders  that   Gray   rejected    the   following 
stanza,  which  came  in  after 

"  To  meet  the  sun  upon  the  upland  lawn,"  &c. 

but  I  should  presume  the  reason  to  be,  that  the  observa- 
tion and  language  were  too  refined  for  the  character  of 
the  hoary  swain : 

"  Him  have  we  seen  the  green-wood  side  along, 
While  o'er  the  heath  we  hied,  our  labor  done, 
Oft  as  the  woodlark  piped  her  farewell  song, 
With  wistful  eyes  pursue  the  setting  sun." 

The  other  rejected  stanza  was  omitted,  as  forming  too 

long  a  parenthesis : 

"  There  scattered  oft,  the  earliest  of  the  year, 
By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  violets  found; 
The  red-breast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there. 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  prmt  the  gi'ound." 

Gray  never  produced  any  lines  more  exquisitely  graceful 
than  these. 

d 


1  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

to  amuse  his  neighbors,    Lady   Cobham,   and 
Miss  Speed,  was  inserted.* 

In  March,  1753,  he  lost  the  mother  whom 
he  had  so  long  and  affectionately  loved ;  and 
he  placed  over  her  remains  an  inscription, 
which  strongly  marks  his  piety  and  sorrow :  — 

BESIDE   HIiR   FRIEND   AND    SISTER, 
HERE   SLEEP  THE    REMAINS   OF 

DOROTHY   GRAY, 

WIDOW,   THE   TENDER   MOTHER 

OF   MANY    CHILDREN,   ONE   OF    WHOM    ALONE 

HAD   THE   MISFORTUNE   TO    SURVIVE   HER. 

SHE   DIED    MARCH    XI^li   MDCCLIII, 

AGED    LXXII. 

*  Gray  lived  in  great  intimacy  with  these  ladies,  his 
neighbors  at  the  Old  House  at  Stoke.  I  have  seen  a  MS. 
letter  from  Miss  Speed  to  him,  written  when  he  was  in 
London,  during  the  great  heat  of  the  summer,  iiivitiug 
him  to  Stoke,  and  telling  him  that  '*  he  shall  fintl  every- 
thing cool,  except  his  reception." 

The  mention  of  the  Old  House,  the  scene  of  the  '■  Long 
Story,"  suggests  also  the  anecdote  in  the  third  stanza,  — 

"  Full  oft  within  the  spacious  walls. 
When  he  had  fifty  winters  o'er  him, 
My  grave  lord  keeper  led  the  brawls; 
The  seals  and  maces  danced  before  him." 

On  these  lines,  see  a  few  observations  which  I  printed 
hi  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  June,  1847.  Of  this  house 
I  have  seen  drawings,  and  a  gron;i'l  plan,  in  the  posses- 
Son  of  Ml-,  i'enn,  the  la'.e  proprietor  of  Stoke  Park. 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  li 

It  is  usually  supposed  that  the  "  Ode  op. 
the  Progress  of  Poesy  "  was  written  in  1755. 
From  a  letter  to  Walpole,  it  appears  that  it 
was  at  that  time  finished,  except  a  few  lines 
towards  the  end.  Gray  mentions  his  being  so 
unfortunate  as  to  be  too  late  for  Bentley's  edi- 
tion,* and  talks  of  inserting  it  in  Dodsley's 
Collection.  In  1754,  it  is  supposed  that  he 
wrote  the  fragment  of  an  "  Ode  to  Vicissitude," 
as  it  is  now  called :  the  idea,  and  even  some 
of  the  lines,  are  taken  from  Gresset's  "  Epitre 
sur  ma  Convalescence  "  :  there  are  some  beau- 
tiful passages  in  it ;  as, 

*  In  the  very  elegant  Poem  to  Mr.  Bentley,  the  last 
stanza  was  imperfect,  the  corner  of  the  MS.  being  torn 
off.  Mason  supplied  what  Avas  wanting  in  the  words  m 
the  inverted  commas :  — 

"  Enough  for  me,  if  to  some  feeling  breast 
My  lines  a  secret  sympathy  '  impart  '; 
And  as  the  pleasing  influence  \flo2vs  confest,^ 
A  sigh  of  soft  reflection  ^heaves  the  heavV  " 

To  my  taste,  "heaves  the  heart,"  and  '"flows  confest," 
are  not  in  Gray's  style.  I  think  he  had  the#  in  view 
Dryden's  Epistle  to  Kneller;  and  under  the  shelter  of  this 
supposition  I  venture  on  another  reading:  — 

"  Enough  for  me,  if  to  some  feeling  breast 
My  lines  a  secret  sympathy  '  convey  '; 
And  as  their  plea.'^ing  influence  '  is  exprest,^ 
A  >igli  of  soft  reflection  '  dies  aw  ly.''  " 


lii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

"  Till  Api-il  starts  and  calls  around 
The  sleeping  fragrance  from  the  ground; 
And  lightly  o'er  the  living  scene 
Scatters  his  freshest,  tenderest  green." 

And, 

*'  The  meanest  floweret  of  the  vale, 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale, 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  are  opening  Paradise." 

And  others  might  be  quoted. 

Mason,  if  he  had  had  proper  reverence  for 
the  talents  of  his  friend,  and  could  have  esti- 
mated rightly  his  own  powers,  should  have 
left  the  unfinished  fragment  as  it  came  from 
the  hands  of  the  artist :  NoUs  placet  exemplum 
priscorum^  qui  Appelleam  Venerem  imperfectam 
maluerunt,  quam  integram  manu  extranea. 
But  he  attempted  to  supply  the  "  ivory  shoul- 
der"; and  has  produced  some  lines  unusually 
bad,  even  for  him  ;  ex.  gr. 

"  He,  unconscious  whence  the  bliss. 
Feels,  and  owns  in  carols  rude, 
That  all  the  circling  joys  are  his, 
Of  dear  Vicissitude." 

Langhorne,  in  a  Letter  to  Hannah  More, 
writes :  "  I  have  read  something  that  Mason 
has  done,  in  finishing  a  half-written  Ode  of 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  1^ 

Gray.  I  find  he  will  never  get  the  better  of 
that  glare  of  coloring,  that  '  dazzling  blaze  of 
song '  (an  expression  of  his  own,  and  ridicu- 
lous enough),  which  disfigures  half  his  writ- 
ings." Langhorne  was  certainly  right  in  his 
judgment,  though  in  the  mirror  of  his  criticism 
he  might  have  seen  his  own  image,  not  laintly, 
nor  unfairly,  reflected. 

Another  Ode  was  also  sketched,  wliich 
might  be  called  the  "Liberty  of  Genius," 
though  some  of  Gray's  biographers  have  been 
pleased  to  call  it,  "The  Connection  between 
Genius  and  Grandeur."  The  argument  of  it, 
the  only  part  which  was  ever  written,  is  as 
follows :  "  All  that  men  of  power  can  do  for 
men  of  genius  is  to  leave  them  at  their  liberty, 
compared  to  birds,  that,  when  confined  to  a 
cage,  do  but  regret  the  loss  of  their  freedom 
in  melancholy  strains,  and  lose  the  luscious 
wildness  and  happy  luxuriance  of  their  notes, 
which  used  to  make  the  woods  resound." 

Gray,  as  Walpole  remarks,  was  indeed  in 
flower  these  last  three  years.  "The  Bard" 
Avas  conceived,  and  part  of  it  communicated  to 
Mr.  Stonhewer  and  Dr.  Wharton,  in  1755; 
but  it  wuii  for  some  time  left  untinished.     Thu 


liv  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

accident,  however,  of  seeing  a  blind  harper, 
Mr.  Parry,  perform  on  the  Welsh  harp,  again, 
he  says,  put  his  Ode  in  motion,  and  brought  it 
at  last  to  a  conclusion.  He  submitted  it  to 
the  opinion  of  his  critical  friends.  He  men- 
tions a  remark  of  Dr.  Hurd  upon  it ;  and  tlie 
"conceit  of  Mason,"  we  are  told  by  Walpole, 
"  almost  induced  him  to  destroy  his  two  beau- 
tiful and  sulilime  Odes."  In  July,  1757,  he 
took  his  Odes  to  London  to  be  publish cid.  ''  I 
found  Gray,"  says  Horace  Walpole,  "  in  tow^n 
last  WTek  :  he  brought  his  two  Odes  to  be 
printed ;  I  snatched  them  out  of  Dodsley's 
hands,  and  kept  them  to  be  the  first-fruits  of 
ray  press."  Dodsley,  however,  afterwards 
purchased  them,  and  Gray  received  fort^ 
pounds,  his  receipt  of  which  is  now  in  tht 
possession  of  Mr.  S.  Rogers.  These  Odes 
were  not  very  favorably  received  by  the  pub- 
lic; nor  indeed  could  their  very  great  excel- 
lence, the  splendor  of  the  imagery,  the  bold- 
ness of  the  figurative  language,  the  varied 
harmony  of  the  verse,  and  the  exquisite  finish 
of  the  diction,  be  appreciated  but  by  a  few. 
The  reviewers  were  })nzzled  in  their  judg- 
ments.    The  reviewer  of  poetry  for  the  "  The 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Iv 

Critical,"  who  was  Dr.  Franklin,  mistook  the 
"^olian  Lyre"  for  the  "^olian  Harp." 
Mr.  Fox,  afterwards  Lord  Holland,  said,  that 
*•  if  the  Bard  only  recited  his  Ode  once  to 
Edward,  he  was  s'ure  he  could  not  understand 
it."  When  this  was  told  to  Gray,  he  said, 
"  If  he  had  recited  it  twenty  times,  Edward 
would  not  have  been  a  bit  wiser  ;  but  that  was 
no  reason  why  Mr.  Fox  should  not."  Aken- 
side  criticised  some  of  the  expressions,  but  said 
much  more  in  their  praise.  Warburton  abused 
those  who  condemned,  without  being  able  to 
undeistand  them;  and  Lord  Lyttelton  and 
Shenstone  admired,  but  wished  that  Gray  had 
been  clearer.*  One  reviewer  said  "  The 
Bard "  was  taken  from  Horace,  and  advised 
the  poet  in  future  to  be  more  original. 

In  the  original  sketch  for  ''  The  Bard,"  the 

*  "  Tliat  Gray  was  conscious  of  the  fault  (obscurity) 
iinputod  to  his  Ode  '  The  Bard '  is  manifest  to  rae  from 
two  particulars;  one,  his  prefixing  to  it  the  motto,  ^wviirra 
a-vverola-i.i' •  the  other  is,  the  explanatory  notes  which, 
with  great  reluctance,  he  added  at  last  by  the  advice  of 
his  friends,  among  whom  was  the  loriter  of  the  Letter,  who 
drew  up  an  analysis  of  the  Ode  for  his  own  use,  as  men- 
tioned in  the  Life  of  Gray."  See  "  Remarks  on  the  Pur- 
suits of  Literature,  by  John  Mainwaring,  B.  D.,  Margaret 
Profe?>or  of  Divinity,"  p.  19. 


hi  LIFE   OF   CRAY. 

plan  of  the  latter  part  was  somewhat  tlifferent 
from  its  present  form.  After  re})robating 
Edward  for  his  cruelties,  he  with  prophetic 
spirit  declares,  that  his  cruelties  shall  uever 
extinguish  the  noble  ardor  of  poetic  genius  in 
the  island ;  and  that  men  shall  never  be  want- 
ing to  celebrate  true  virtue,  and  venture  in  im- 
mortal strains  to  expose  vice  and  infamous 
pleasure,  and  boldly  to  repel  tyranny  and  op- 
pression. But,  unhaj)pily  for  this  design, 
instances  of  English  poets  are  wanting.  Spen- 
ser, it  is  true,  celebrated  virtue  and  heroic 
valor,  but  only  in  allegory.  The  dramas  of 
Shakespeare  could  hardly  be  cited  as  examples 
of  poetry  having  this  great  end  and  noble 
purpose  always  in  view.  Milton,  as  Mason 
observes,  censured  tyranny  and  oppression,  not 
in  poetiy,  but  in  prose ;  and  then  there  oidy 
remained  Dryden,  Pope,  and  Addison,  whose 
writings  were  little  suited  to  his  purpose. 
Therefore  towards  the  conclusion  he  was 
obliged  to  change  his  plan,  and  praise  Spenser 
for  his  allegory ;  Shakespeare,  for  his  power 
of  moving  the  passions ;  and  IMilton,  for  his 
epic  excellence.  Gray  told  IVIa^on,  that  he 
was  well  aware  of  many  ireally  tJiings  tou'ards 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  \y,[ 

the  conclusion,  but  hoped  the  end  itself 
would  do. 

With  regard  to  the  form  of  the  stanzas  in 
which  these  Odes  are  composed,  Gray  con- 
sidered that  that  used  by  some  of  our  older 
poets,  as  Cowley  and  his  followers,  was  too 
long;  and  that  the  proper  length  should  be 
governed  by  this  rule,  that  the  ear  should  be 
able  to  keep  in  its  memory  the  sound  of  every 
corresponding  rhyme.* 

It  will  not  be  without  interest,  if  we  turn 
for  a  moment  from  the  direct  narrative  to  one 
of  Gray's  Letters,  which  is  not  to  be  found  in 
Mason's  Memoirs  of  him ;  and  ascertain  what 
is  the  estimation  in  which  he  held  the  talents 
of  his  poetical  contemporaries.  Dodsley's  vol- 
umes had  been  published  a  few  years  be'bre, 
in  which  many  of  their  celebrated  composi- 
tions are  to  be  found.  '^  To  begin,"  he  writes, 
"  with  Mr.  Tickell.  Tliis  is  not  only  a  State 
poem  (my  ancient  aversion),  but  a  State  poem 
on  the  Peace  of  Utrecht.  If  Mr.  Pope  had 
written  a  panegyric  on  it,  one  would  hardly 

*  In  Dryden's  "Alexander's  Feast,"  a  few  of  the  lines 
have  no  corresponding  rhyme,  which  most  likely  escaped 
the  poet  in  the  process  of  composition. 


Ivlil  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

have  read  him  with  patience.  But  this  is  only 
a  poor  short-winded  imitator  of  Addison,*  who 
had  himself  not  above  three  or  four  notes  in 
poetry  ;  sweet  enough  indeed,  like  those  of  a 
German  flute,  but  such  as  soon  tire  and  satiate 
the  ear,  with  their  frequent  return :  Tickell 
has  added  to  this  a  great  poverty  of  sense, 
and  a  string  of  transitions  that  hardly  become 
a  school-boy :  however,  I  forgive  him  for  the 
sake  of  his  Ballad,  which  I  always  thought 
the  j)rettiest  in  the  world.t  All  the  verses  of 
Mr.  Green  have  been  printed  before :  there  is 
a  profusion  of  wit  everywhere :  reading  would 
have  formed  his  judgment,  and  harmonized  liis 
verse  ;  for  even  his  wood-notes  often  break 
out  in  strains  of  real  poetry  and  music.  The 
'  School-Mistress  '  is  excellent  in  its  kind,  and 

*  The  best  couplet  of  Tickell's  best  poem  is  in  his 
Elegy  on  Addison :  — 

"  He  taught  us  how  to  live;  and  oh!  too  high 
The  price  of  knowledge,  taught  us  how  to  die." 
Now  compare  the  following:  "I  have  taught  you,  my 
dear  flock,  for  above  thirty  j-ears,  how  to  live;  and  I  will 
show  you  in  a  very  short  time  how  to  die."  See  Anglo- 
rum  Speculum,  by  G.  Sandys,  p.  903.  So  much  for 
originality ! 

t  To  his  fair  Lucy,  beginning 

''  Of  Leicester,  famed  for  maidens  fair." 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  I'x: 

masterly ;  and  '  London '  is  one  of  those  few 
imitations  that  have  all  the  ease  and  spirit  of 
the  original.  The  same  man's  verses  at  the 
opening  of  the  Garrick  Theatre  are  far  from 
bad.  Mr.  Dyer  has  more  of  poetry  in  his 
imagination  than  almost  any  of  our  men  here, 
but  rough  and  injudicious.  I  should  range 
Mr.  Bramston  as  only  a  step  or  two  above  Dr. 
King,  who  is  as  bad  in  my  estimation  as  in 
yours.  Dr.  Evans  is  a  furious  madman  ;  and 
*  Prse-existence '  is  nonsense  in  all  her  alti- 
tudes. Mr.  Lyttelton  is  a  gentle  elegiac  per- 
son. Mr.  Nugent  sure  did  not  write  his  own 
Ode."*^     I  like  Mr.  Whitehead's  little  poems  (I 

*  The  Ode  addressed  to  Mr.  Pulteney.  The  followhig 
stanza  was  particuhirly  admn-ed,  and  is  quoted  by  Gib- 
bon, in  the  character  of  Brutus :  — 

''  What  though  the  good,  the  brave,  the  wise, 
With  adverse  force  undaunted  rise, 

To  break  th'  eternal  doom  ? 
Though  Cato  hved,  though  Tully  spoke. 
Though  Brutus  dealt  the  god-like  stroke. 
Yet  perished  fated  Rome." 

Gray's  conjecture  that  Nugent  did  not  write  his  own 
Ode  seems  confirmed,  for  H.  Walpole  says:  "  Mr.  Nugent 
had  hitherto  the  reputation  of  an  original  poet,  by  writ- 
ing verses  of  his  own,  after  he  had  acquired  fame  by  an 
Ode  which  was  the  joint  production  of  several  others. 
It  was  addressed  to  Lord  Bath,  upon  the  author's  change 


Ix  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

mean  the  '  Ode  on  a  Tent,'  the  '  Verses  to 
Garrickj'  and  particularly  those  to  C.  Towns- 
hend)  better  than  anything  I  had  ever  seen 
before  of  him.  I  gladly  pass  over  H.  Brown, 
and  the  others,  to  come  to  you :  you  know  J 
was  of  the  publishing  side,  and  thought  your 
reasons  aojainst  it — none.  For  though,  as 
Mr.  Chute  said  extremely  well,  the  still  small 
voice  of  Poetry  was  not  made  to  be  heard  in 
a  crowd,  yet  Satire  will  be  heai'd,  for  all  the 
audience  are  by  nature  her  friends.  AVhat 
shall  I  say  to  Mr.  Lowtli,  Mr.  Ridley,  Mr. 
RoUe,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Brown,  Mr.  Seward,  <S.c.  ? 
If  I  say,  '  Messieurs,  this  is  not  the  thing ; 
write  prose,  write  sermons,  write  nothing  at 
all';  they  will  disdain  me  and  my  advice. 
Mr.  S.  Jenyns  can  now  and  then  write  a  good 
line  or  two,  such  as  these :  — 

'  Snatch  us  from  all  our  little  sorrows  here, 
Calm  every  grief,  and  dry  each  childish  tear.' 

I  like  Mr.  Aston  Hervey's  Fable ;  and  an 
Ode,  the  best  of  all,  by  Mr.  Mason,  a  new  ac- 

of  religion;  but  was  universally  supposed  to  be  written 
bj'  Mullet,  and  improved  by  Chesterfield."  See  "  WaU 
pole's  Memoirs,"  p.  40. 


LIFE    OF   GRA  Y.  Ixi 

quaintance  of  mine,  whose  Muse  too  seems  to 
carry  with  it  the  promise  at  least  of  something 
good  to  come.  I  was  glad  to  see  you  distin- 
guished who  poor  West  was,  before  his  charm- 
ing Ode,  and  called  it  anything  rather  than 
Pindaric.  The  town  is  more  cruel,  if  it  don't 
like  Lady  Mary ;  and  I  am  surprised  at  it* 
We  here  are  owls  enough  to  think  her  Ec- 
logues very  bad;  but  that  I  did  not  wonder 
at.  Oar  present  taste  is  '  Sir  Thomas  Fitz- 
osborne's  Letters,"  &c. 

In  1756  Gray  left  Peter-House,  where  he 
had  resided  about  twenty  years,  on  account  of 
some  incivilities  he  met  with,  which  are  men- 
tioned in  his  correspondence.  Mason  says, 
that  two  or  three  young  men  of  fortune,  who 
lived  on  the  same  staircase,  had  for  some  time 

*  One  of  Lady  Mary's  poetical  expressions  seems  to 
have  been  in  Gray's  memory  when  he  wrote, 
"  'T  was  on  a  lofty  vase's  side, 
Where  China's  gayest  art  had  dyed 
The  azure  flowers  that  blow,"  &c. 

Compare  one  of  Lady  Mary's  Town  Eclogues:  — 
"  Where  the  tall  Jar  erects  its  stately  pride, 
With  antic  shapes,  in  China's  azure  dyed." 

The  Toilette. 
This  stately  old  jar,  or  vase,  is  now  removed  to  the  Earl 
of  Derby's,  at  Knowsley,  from  Strawberry  Hill. 


Ixil  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

continually  disturbed  him  with  their  riots  ; 
and  carried  their  ill-behavior  so  far  as  fre- 
quently to  awaken  him  at  midnight.  After 
having  borne  with  their  hisults  longer  than 
might  have  been  expected,  even  from  a  man 
of  less  warmth  of  temper,  Mr.  Gray  com- 
plained to  the  governing  part  of  the  socie'ty ; 
and  not  thinking  this  remonstrance  was  suffi- 
ciently attended  to,  quitted  the  College.  A 
month  or  two  before  he  left,  he  wrote  to  Dr. 
Martin,  "  I  beg  you  to  bespeak  me  a  rope  lad- 
der (for  my  neighbors  every  day  make  a  great 
progress  in  drunkenness,  which  gives  me  cause 
to  look  about  me).  It  must  be  full  thirty-six 
feet  long,  or  a  httle  more,  but  as  light  and 
manageable  as  may  be,  easy  to  unroll,  and  not 
likely  to  entangle.  I  never  saw  one,  but  I 
suppose  it  must  have  strong  hooks,  or  some- 
thing equivalent  at  top,  to  throw  over  an  iron 
bar,  to  be  fixed  in  the  side  of  my  window. 
However,  you  will  choose  the  properest  form, 
and  instruct  me  in  the  use  of  it."  * 


*  Two  iron  bars  may  still  be  seen  at  the  window  of 
the  chambers  at  Peter-House  occupied  by  Gray,  which 
are  said  to  be  of  his  placing  there,  for  the  purpose  he 
mentions.     I   have   been  told,  on  the  authority  of  Dr. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Lxiii 

In  1757  Cibber  died  at  an  advanced  age, 
and  the  Laiireateship  was  offered  by  the  Duke 
of  Devonshire,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  to 
Gray,  witli  the  privilege  of  holding  it  as  a 
mere  sinecure.  This  offer  he  respectfully  de- 
clined, and  mentions  his  reasons  to  Mason. 
"The  office  itself  has  always  troubled  the 
possessor  hitherto:  if  he  were  a  poor  writer, 
by  making  him  conspicuous ;  and  if  he  were  a 
good  one,  by  setting  him  at  war  with  the  little 
fry  of  his  own  profession :  for  there  are  poets 
little  enough  even  to  annoy  a  poet  laureate." 
The  laurel  was  accepted,  on  Gray's  refusal,  by 
Mr.  Whitehead ;  but  Mason  was  not  quite 
overlooked,  for  he  received  a  compliment  in- 
stead of  the  office.  Lord  John  Cavendish 
made  an  apology  to  him,  "  that  being  in 
orders,  he  was  thought  less  eligible  than  a 
layman." 

In  1758  Gray  describes  himself  as  compos- 

Gretton,  the  Master  of  Magdalene  (who  was  formerly  of 
Peter-House),  that  "the  young  men  of  fortune"  were 
the  late  Lord  Egmont,  then  Mr.  Perceval,  a  Mr.  Forres- 
ter, a  Mr.  Williams,  and  others;  that  Gray  complained  to 
the  Master,  Dr.  Law,  Bishop  of  Carlisle;  and  he  offended 
Gray  by  the  little  regard  he  paid  to  the  complaint,  and 
by  his  calling  it  "  a  boyish  frolic-" 


ixiv  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

ing.  for  his  own  amusement,  the  little  work 
which  he  calls  "  A  Catalogue  of  the  Antiqui- 
ties, Houses,  &c.,  in  England  and  Wales,"'  which 
he  drew  up  on  the  blank  pages  of  Kitchen's 
Atlas.  After  liis  death,  it  was  printed  in 
duodecimo,  and  distributed  by  Mason  to  his 
friends.  In  1787  a  new  edition  was  printed 
for  sale.* 

About  this  period  he  was  much  employed 
in  the  study  of  architecture.  Some  of  his 
observations  appeared  in  Mr.  Bentham's  His- 
tory of  Ely,  and  in  the  ''  Gentleman's  Mag- 
azine" for  1764  (April).  A  letter  from  Gray 
to  Bentham  is  printed,  which  contains  all  the 
information  he  had  afforded  to  the  latter. 
This  was  published  in  consequence  of  a  report, 
that  the  whole  of  the  Treatise  on  Saxon,  Nor- 
man, and  Gothic  Architecture,  published  in 
the  History  of  Ely,  was  written  by  Gray.f 

In  January,  1759,  the  British  Museum  was 

*  I  saw  the  original  book  at  the  sale  of  Gray's  library, 
from  which  it  appeared  that  Mason,  in  printing  it,  omit- 
ted entirely  the  references  made  by  Gray  to  the  works 
which  he  used.  It  had  also  the  advantage  over  Mason's 
reprint,  of  having  the  maps  of  the  counties. 

•|  See  Bentham's  Preface  to  History  of  Ely,  p.  13 }  anJ 
NichoUs's  Literary  Anecdotes,  Vol.  111.  p.  4b9. 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  l^y 

opened  to  the  public,  and  Gray  went  to  Lon- 
don,* to  read  and  transcribe  from  the  man- 
uscripts collected  there  from  the  Harleian  and 
Cottonian  Libraries.  His  studies  were  di- 
rected to  historical  subjects,  and  not  to  poet- 
ical ;  though  he  says,  "  The  library  is  so  rich 
in  Lydgate,  Chaucer,  and  the  older  poets,  as 
might  induce  him  to  pursue  that  branch  of  his 
collections."  t  A  foHo  volume  of  his  collec- 
tions was  in  Mason's  hands,  out  of  which  one 
paper  alone,  "The  Speech  of  Sir  Thomas 
Wyatt  before  the  Privy  Council,"  was  pi-inted 
in  Lord  Orford's  Miscellaneous  Antiquities, 
but,  as  I  find  from  a  note  in  Dr.  Nott's  Life 
of  Gray,  very  imperfectly.  "  I  live,"  he  says, 
"in  the  Museum,  and  write  volumes  of  antiq- 
uity.    I  have  got  out  of  the  original  ledger- 

*  Foi*  the  convenience  of  being  neai-  the  Museum,  he 
lodged  in  Southampton  Row;  his  residence  at  that  time 
commanding  a  view  of  the  country,  and  the  Hampstead 
and  Highgate  hills.  But  in  general  he  lived  in  Jermyn 
Street.  St.  James',  either  at  Roberts'  the  hosier's,  or  at 
Frisby's  the  oilman's,  towards  the  east  end,  on  different 
sides  of  the  street.  In  a  manuscript  letter  of  his  which  I 
have  seen,  he  mentions  half-a-guinea  a  week  as  the  sura 
he  used  to  pay  for  his  room,  and  which  he  does  not  wish 
to  exceed.  His  dinners  he  used  to  have  from  a  neigh- 
boring coffee-house,  probably  in  the  Haymarket. 

t  From  a  manuscript  letter. 


Ixvi  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

book  of  the  Signet,  King  Richard  the  Third's 
Oath  to  Elizabeth,  late  calling  herself  Queen 
of  England,  to  prevail  upon  her  to  come  out 
of  the  sanctuary,  with  her  five  daughters. 
His  grant  to  Lady  Hastings  and  her  son,  dated 
six  weeks  after  he  had  cut  oif  her  husband's 
head.  A  letter  to  his  mother ;  another  to  his 
chancellor,  to  persuade  his  solicitor-general 
not  to  marry  Jane  vShore,  then  in  Ludgate  by 
his  command.  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt's  Defence 
at  his  Trial,  when  accused  by  Bishop  Bonner 
of  high  treason.  Lady  Pembroke  and  her 
son's  remarkable  case ;  and  several  other  odd 
things,  unknown  to  our  historians.  When  I 
come  home,  I  have  a  great  heap  of  the  Con- 
way Papers  (which  is  a  secret)  to  read  and 
make  out ;  in  short,  I  am  up  to  the  ears,  &c."  * 
He  was,  as  Dr.  Johnson  observes,  but  little 
affected  by  two  "  Odes  of  Obscurity  and  Obliv- 
ion," written  by  Messrs.  Colman  and  Lloyd, 
in  ridicule  of  him  and  Mason.  The  liuinor  of 
them,  I  think,  has  been  much  over-praised; 
and  I  agree  with  Warburton,  who  in  his  usual 

*  The  Conway  Papers,  in  tiie  reign  of  James  I.  See 
Walpole's  Letters,  Vol,  V.  p.  61;  and  the  Letters  to  Dr 
Zouch,  p  251,  4  to. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  Lxvii 

stroDg  language  calls  them  ''two  miserable 
buffoon  Odes."  Dr.  Joseph  Wharton  says, 
that  "'  the  Odes  of  Gray  were  burlesqued  by 
two  men  of  wit  and  genius,  who  however  once 
owned  to  me  that  they  repented  of  the  at- 
tempt." * 

During  Gray's  residence  in  London,  he  be- 
came slightly  acquainted  with  Mr.  Stillingfleet, 
the  naturaHst,  whose  death  took  place  a  few 
weeks  after  his  own  :  and  he  wrote,  at  the 
request  of  Mr.  Montague,  an  Epitaph  upon 
Sir  W.  Williams,  who  was  killed  at  the  siege 
of  Belleisle.  He  excused  himself  at  first,  on 
account  of  the  very  slight  acquaintance  he 
had  with  the  deceased :  but  on  Mr.  Mon- 
tague's repeating  his  request,  he  yielded.  In 
one  of  his  letters  to  Mr.  Stonhewer,  some 
little  time  previous,  I  remember  reading,  "  I 
hear  that  Sir  W.  Williams  is  going  to  risk  his 
Jine   Vandyk  head  in  the  war." 

In  1762  the  Professorship  of  JModern  His- 
tory being  vacant  by  the  death  of  ]Mr.  Turner, 
by  the  advice  of  his  friends.  Gray  ap{)lied  to 
Lord  Bute  for  the  place,  but  was  refused,  and 

*  See  Warton's  Pope,  Vol.  I.  p.  236;  and  also  Colman's 
Works  Vol.  I.  p.  11. 


Ixviii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

the  professorship  was  given  to  Mr.  Brocket, 
the  tutor  to  Sir  John  Lowther.  "  And  so/' 
says  Gray,  "  I  have  made  my  fortune  like  Sir 
Francis  Wronghead."  In  the  summer  of  1765 
he  took  a  journey  to  Scotland,  hoth  to  improve 
his  health  and  gratify  his  curiosity.  He  went 
through  Edinburgh  and  Perth,  and  stayed 
some  time  at  Slnnes  Castle,  the  residence  of 
Lord  Strathmore.  Thence  he  took  an  excur- 
sion into  the  Highlands,  crossing  Perthshire 
by  Loch  Tay,  and  pursuing  the  road  from 
Dunkeld  to  Inverness,  as  far  as  the  pass  of 
Killikrankie :  then  returned  on  the  Stirling 
road  to  Edinburgh.  "  His  account  of  his 
travels,"  says  Johnson,  "  is,  so  far  as  it  extends, 
curious  and  elegant.  From  his  corapreheii- 
siou,  which  was  ample,  his  curiosity  extended 
to  all  the  works  of  art,  the  appearances  of 
nature,  and  all  the  monuments  of  past  events." 
With  the  Lowlands  he  was  much  pleased ;  but 
the  views  of  the  Highlands,  he  said,  ought  to 
be  visited  every  year.  "  The  mountains  are 
ecstatic.  None  but  these  monstrous  creations 
of  God  know  how  to  join  so  much  beauty  to 
so  much  horroro  A  fig  for  your  poets,  paint- 
ers, frentlemen,  and  cleroymen,  that  have  not 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  Ixix 

been  among  them.'"*  Here  he  made  ac- 
quaintance with  the  author  of  "  The  Minstrel," 
and  recommended  emphatically  to  him  the 
study  of  the  writings  of  Dryden.  He  told 
Dr.  Beattie,  "  that  if  there  was  any  excellence 
in  his  own  numbers,  he  had  learnt  it  wholly 
from  that  great  poet;  and  pressed  him  with 
earnestness  to  study  him,  as  his  choice  of 
words  and  versification  are  singularly  happy 
and  harmonious."  Part  of  the  summer  of 
1766  he  passed  in  a  tour  in  Kent,  and  at  the 
house  of  his  friend  IMr.  Robinson,  on  the  skirts 
of  Barham  Downs.  In  1767  he  again  left 
Cambridge,  and  went  to  the  North  of  England, 
on  a  visit  to  Dr.  Wharton,  from  vv^hose  house 
he  made  excursions  to  the  neighljoi'ing  places, 
particularly  to  Hartlepool,  the  situation  of 
which  he  seemed  much  to  like,  and  where  it 
appears,  from  his  journal,  that  he  spent  much 
of  his  time  in  conversation  with  the  fishermen, 
and  in  inquiries  respecting  the  names,  habits, 
and  history  of  the  fish  that  frequented  that 
part  of  the  coast. 

He  had  intended  a  second  tour  in  Scotland, 
but  returned  to  London  without  accomplishing 

*  Manuscript. 


Ixx  /^^/'A'    OF   GRAY. 

his  design.  At  Dr.  Beattie's  desire,  a  new 
edition  of  his  Poems  was  published  at  Glas- 
gow, and  at  the  same  time  Dod  ley  was  print- 
ing them  in  London.  In  both  these  editions 
"  The  Long  Story  "  was  omitted,  as  the  plates 
from  Bentley's  designs  were  worn  out,  and 
Gray  said  "  that  its  only  use,  W'hich  was  to 
explain  the  plates,  was  gone."  *  Some  pieces 
of  "Welch  and  Norwegian  poetry  are  inserted 
in  its  place,  of  which  the  "  Descent  of  Odin  " 
is  the  most  popular. 

In  1768  the  Professorship  of  Modern  His- 
tory again  became  vacant,  by  the  death  of  Mr. 
Brocket;  and  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  then  in 
power,  at  the  request  of  Mr.  Stonhewer,  be- 
stowed it  on  Gray.  The  Duke,  on  the  death 
of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  was  elected  to  the 
Chancellorship  of  the  University.  His  instal- 
lation took  place  in  the  summer,  and  Gray 
returned  the  favor  he  had  received,  by  writing 
his  Ode  on  the  occasion,  —  as  beautiful  a 
poem,  it  appears  to  me,  as  was  ever  raised  by 

*  Bentley's  original  drawings  for  the  work  were  sold 
at  the  sale  of  Strawberry  Hill,  and  in  the  volume  w^as 
inserted  a  pencil  drawing  of  the  Old  House,  under  which 
Horace  Walpole  had  written,  "  This  is  the  only  drawing 
I  know  by  Gray." 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Jxxi 

poetical  fancy  from  such  apparently  inadequate 
materials.  The  fourth  stanza,  in  which  the 
founders  of  the  different  colleges  pass  in  j^ro- 
cession  before  us,  like  a  stream  of  airy  forms, 
is  adorned  with  the  richest  fancy,  and  ex- 
pressed in  the  most  musical  numbers  and 
varied  harmony  of  verse  and  language.  There 
is,  so  far  as  the  verse  extends,  no  lyric  poem 
in  our  language  of  such  rich  elaborate  chas- 
ing, or  glowing  ^vith  such  a  magical  splendor 
of  coloring,  and  such  a  fine  combination  of 
beautiful  images,  appropriate  words,  and  ex- 
quisitely regulated  verse. 

Gray  told  Dr.  Beattie,  that  he  considered 
himself  bound  in  gratitude  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  to  write  the  Ode,  and  that  he  forer,aw 
the  abuse  that  would  be  thrown  upon  him  for 
it,  but  did  not  think  it  worth  his  v/hile  to  avoid 
it.  Mr.  Nicholls  tells  us,  that,  during  a  visit 
he  paid  to  Gray,  the  latter  offered  with  a  good 
grace  —  what  he  could  not  have  refused,  if  it 
had  been  asked  of  him  —  to  write  the  Instal- 
lation Ode.  This,  howe\er,  he  considered  as 
a  sort  of  task,  to  which  he  submitted  with 
great  reluctance ;  and  it  was  long  after  he  first 
mentioned  it   to   him   before  he  cjuld  nrevail 


Ixxii  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

on  himself  to  begin  the  composition.  He  says, 
"  One  morning,  when  I  went  to  him  as  usual 
after  breakfast,  I  knocked  at  his  door,  which 
he   drew  open,  and    exclaimed,   with    a  loud 

voice,  — 

'  Hence,  avaunt !  't  is  holy  ground  I ' 

I  was  so  astonished,  that  I  almost  feared  he 
was  out  of  his  senses ;  but  this  was  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Ode,  which  he  had  just  com- 
posed." 

And  here,  perhaps,  as  this  is  the  last  of 
Gray's  three  great  Odes,  it  will  be  due  both 
to  the  poet,  and  to  his  admirers,  to  quote  a 
portion  of  what  Mr.  Mathias  has  observed 
on  Gray's  lyrical  versification :  "  The  pecu- 
liar formation  of  the  strophe,  antistrophe,  and 
epode  was  unknown  before  him ;  and  it  could 
only  have  been  planned  and  perfected  by  a 
master-genius,  who  was  equally  skilled,  by 
repeated  stud}^,  and  by  transfusion  into  his 
own  mind  of  the  lyric  compositions  of  an- 
cient Greece,  and  of  the  higher  canzoni  of 
the  Tuscan  poetry, '  di  moggior  car  mi  e  suono^ 
as  it  is  termed  in  the  commanding  energy  of 
their  language.  Antecedent  to  '  The  Progress 
of  Poesy '  and  '  The  Bard,'  no  such  lyrics  had 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  Lxxiii 

appeared.  There  is  not  an  ode  in  the  English 
language  constructed  like  these  two  composi- 
tions, with  such  powder,  such  majesty,  and  such 
sweetness :  with  such  appropriate  pauses,  and 
just  cadences ;  with  such  regulated  measure 
of  the  verse ;  with  such  master  principles  of 
lyric  art  displayed  and  exemplified,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  such  concealment  of  the  diffi- 
culty, which  is  lost  by  the  softness  and  unin- 
terrupted fluency  of  the  Ihies  in  each  stanza ; 
with  such  a  musical  magic,  that  every  verse  of 
it  in  succession  dwells  on  the  ear,  and  harmo- 
nizes with  that  which  is  gone  before." 

When  the  ceremony  of  the  Installation  was 
over,  Gray  went  on  a  tour  to  the  Lakes  of 
Cumberland  and  Westmoreland.  His  old 
friend  Dr.  Wharton,  who  w^as  to  have  been 
his  companion  in  the  journey,  was  seized  with 
a  return  of  an  astlunatic  fit  on  the  first  day, 
and  went  home.  Gray  pursued  his  solitary 
tour,  and  sent  a  journal  of  his  travels  regularly 
to  his  friend.  This  has  been  printed.  It  is 
written  with  great  simplicity  and  elegance, 
and  abounds  in  lively  and  picturesque  descrip- 
tion. "  He  that  reads  his  Epistolary  Narra- 
tive,"  says    Johnson,   "  wishes  that  to  travel, 


Ixxiv       -  J^TFE   OF   CRAY. 

and  tell  his    travels,    had   been    more   of  his 
employment." 

In  April,  1770,  he  complains  much  of  a  de- 
pression of  spirits,  talks  of  an  intended  tour 
in  Wales  in  the  summer,  and  of  meeting  his 
friend,  Dr.  Wharton,  at  Mason's  house  at  As- 
ton. In  July,  however,  he  was  still  at  Cam- 
bridge, and  wrote  to  Dr.  Beattie,  complaining 
of  illness  and  pains  in  the  head,  &c.  This 
letter  sent  him  some  criticisms  on  the  first 
book  of  "The  Minstrel,"  which  have  since 
been  printed.  This  tour  took  place  in  the 
autumn:  his  companion  was  his  friend  ]\Ir. 
Nicholls,  of  Blundeston  in  Suffolk,  a  gentle- 
man of  much  accomplishment,  and  who  ^^as 
admitted  during  the  latter  part  of  Gray's  life 
into  very  intimate  friendship  with  him.  He 
was,  I  believe,  the  Octavius  of  the  "  Pursuits  of 
Literature."  In  May,  1771,  he  wrote  to  Dr. 
Wharton,  just  sketching  the  outline  of  his  tour 
to  Wales  and  some  of  the  adjoining  counties. 
This  is  the  last  letter  that  appears  in  Mason's 
collection.  He  there  complains  of  an  unusual 
cough,  of  spirits  habitually  low,  and  of  the 
uneasiness  which  the  thoughts  of  the  duties 
which  his  professorship  gave  him,  which,  after 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  Ixxv 

having  held  three  years,  he  had  now  a  deter- 
mmed  resolution  to  resign.*  Me  mentions  also 
different  plans  of  travel  and  amusement  that 
he  had  projected.  A  few  days  after,  he  re- 
moved to  London,  where  his  health  more  and 
more  declined.  Dr.  Gisborne,  his  physician, 
advised  a  purer  air,  and  he  went  to  Kensing- 
ton :  there  in  some  degree  he  revived,  ami  re- 
turned to  Cambridge,  intending  to  go  from 
that  place  to  his  friend  Dr.  Wharton's,  at  Old 
Park.  Some  little  time  before  this,  his  fi-iend 
Mr.  Robinson  had  seen  Gray  m  his  lolgings 
in  Jermyn  Street :  he  was  then  ill,  apparently 
in  a  state  of  decay,  and  in  low  spirits.  lie 
expressed  regret  that  he  had  done  so  little  in 
literature,  and  lamented  that  at  last,  Vvhen  he 
had  become  easy  in  circumstances,  he  had  lost 
his  health. 

On  the  24th  of  July,  while  at  dinner  in  the 
College  Hall,  he  was  seized  vvdth  an  attack  of 
gout   in   his  stomach. f     The  violence  of  the 

*  Gray  began  an  inaugural  ''  Lecture  on  History  "'  in 
Latin,  extending  to  about  a  couple  of  page!=,  whicli  1  pos- 
sess. It  is  much  corrected,  and  he  probably  had  lost  his 
facility,  by  long  disuse,  of  composing  in  that  language. 

t  Mr.  Gary  mentions  in  his  Diary,  that  he  conversed 
with  the  college  servant  who  assisted  to  carry  Gray  from 


Ixxvi  LIFE    OF   (iRAY. 

disease  baffled  the  power  of  medicine.  He 
was  attended  very  carefully  by  Professor 
Pliimptree  and  Dr.  Glynn.  Afterwards,  Mr. 
Stonhewer,  hearing  of  his  danger,  brought  Dr. 
Gisborne  from  London.  In  the  night  he  was 
seized  with  convulsions,  and  did  not  always  talk 
coherently.  He  died  about  eleven  o'clock  on 
the  30  th,  in  the  fifty -fifth  year  of  his  age,  sen- 
sible almost  to  the  last,  quite  aware  of  his 
danger,  and  expressing  no  repining  nor  con- 
cern at  the  thoughts  of  leaving  this  world.  He 
appointed  Mr.  Brown  and  Mr.  Mason  his  ex- 
ecutors ;  and  desired  to  be  buried  near  his 
mother,  at  Stoke.  Mr.  Brown  saw  his  body 
laid  in  the  grave ;  but  it  is  singular,  that  no 
tomb  or  monument  has  been  elected  to  his 
memory :  a  small  stone,  inserted  lately  in  the 
wall  of  the  church,  is  the  only  memorial 
which  indicates  the  spot  where  the  Poet's  dust 
reposes. 

Of  Gray's  person,  his  biographer  has  given 
no  account,  and  Lord  Orford  has  just  men- 
tioned  it.*     There    is   a   portrait   of  him   at 

the  hall  to  his  chamber,  when  he  was  thus  suddenly- 
attacked.     Memoir  of  H.  Gary,  by  his  Son,  Vol.  I.  p.  223. 
*  See  Walpoliana,  Vol.  I.  p.  95.     I  mu<t.  however,  ob 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  lxxv:i 

Pembroke  College,  by  Wilson,  done  after  his 
death,  from  recollection,  which  has  been  en- 
graved both  for  Mason's  and  Mr.  Mathias's 
edition.  There  is  also  an  etching  by  Doughty, 
from  a  drawing  by  Mr.  Mason ;  and  there  is 
one  also  copied  by  Mr.  Henry  Laws,  a  pupil 
of  Bartolozzi:  it  is  perhaps  the  most  correct 
likeness  of  all.  Dr.  Turner,  the  late  Master 
of  Pembroke  College,  and  Dean  of  Norwich, 
had  two  profile  heads  of  Gray,  taken  by  a  Mr. 
Mapletoft,  a  Fellow  of  that  college,  one  of 
w^hich,  he  said,  conveyed  a  strong  resemblance  ; 
but  the  relievo  on  his  monument  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey  is  the  one  most  to  be  relied  on, 
and  from  which  Mr.  Behnes  very  judiciously 
formed  the  bust  which  is  now  placed  in  the 
Upper  School-room  at  Eton. 

Though  warmly  attached  to  a  few,  Gray 
was  very  fastidious  in  the  choice  of  his  society  ; 
and  m  his  later  years  he  was  afflicted  by  such 
painful  and  debilitating  disorders,  as  to  confine 
him  in  a  great  measure  to  the  sohtude  of  his 
own  apartments,  or  to  the  occasional  visits  of 

serve,  that  this  book  is  to  be  received  with  great  caution ; 
for  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  editor,  Mr.  Pinkerton,  in- 
serted throughout  many  of  his  own  opinions,  and  much 
of  his  own  writing. 


Ixxviii  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

a  few  intimate  friends.  He  mentions  in  one 
of  his  later  letters,  which  I  have  had  the  op- 
portunity of  seeing,  that  he  could  not  see  to 
read  at  all  with  one  eye ;  and  that  he  had  the 
muscce  volitantes  so  before  the  otlier,  that,  if  ho 
lived,  he  had  the  chance  of  being  quite  blind. 
The  following  description  of  him,  about  tl.is 
period  of  his  life,  has  been  given  from  personal 
recollection  :  —  "  From  his  earliest  almost  to 
his  latest  residence  at  Cambridge,  it.-i  usages, 
its  studies,  its  principal  members,  were  the 
theme  of  his  persevering  raillery ;  neither 
could  all  the  pride  they  felt  in  the  presence  of 
such  an  inmate  prevent  on  every  occasion  a 
spirit  of  retaliation.  Among  the  older  and 
more  dignified  members  of  that  body,  out  of 
the  narrow  circle  (and  very  narrow  that  circle 
was)  of  his  resident  academical  friends,  he  was 
not,  if  the  truth  must  be  spoken,  regarded 
with  great  personal  respect.  The  primness 
and  precision  of  his  deportment,  the  nice  ad- 
justment of  every  part  of  his  dress,  when  lie 
came  abroad, 

'  Candentesque  comae,  et  splendentis  gratia  vestis,' 
excited  many  a  smile,  and  produced  many  a 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  Lxxlx 

witticism  *  Nay,  even  a  stanza  in  •  Beattie's 
Minstrel,'  as  it  stood  in  the  first  edition,  lias 
been  supposed  to  have  undergone  a  revision, 
prompted  by  the  tenderness  of  friendship,  in 
consequence  of  the  strong,  though  undesigned 
resemblance  which  it  struck  out  of  the  Cam- 
bridge Bard: 

'  Fret  not  thyself,  thou  man  of  modern  song, 

Nor  viohite  the  plaster  of  thy  hair; 
Nor  to  that  dainty  coat  do  aught  of  wrong; 
Else  how  may'st  thou  to  Caesar's  hall  repair? 
For  sure  no  damaged  coat  may  enter  there,'  &c. 

In  his  later  days,  however,  and  when  he 
seldo;n  appeared  in  public,  due  homage  was 
paid  to  the  author  of  'The  Bard'  by  the 
younger  members  of  the  University,  which 
deserves  to  be  commemorated.  Whenever 
Mr.  Gray  appeared  upo:i  the  Walks,  intelli- 
gence ran  from  College  to  College  and  the 
tables  in  the  different  Halls,  if  it  happened  to 
be  the  hour  of  dinner,  were  thinned  by  the 
desertion  of  young  men  thronging  to  behold 
him."  t     The  truth  is,  though  Gray  remained 

*  Among  those  remembered  was  an  epigram  of  Smart's, 
and  a  repartee  of  a  fruit-woman  at  a  coffee-house. 

■f  From  the  Recollections  of  Dr.  Whitaker,  the  histo- 
rian of  Craven. 


Ixxx  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

always  at  Cambridge,  he  appeared  so  little  in 
public,  that  Mr.  Mathias  was  there  for  a 
whole  year  without  ever  having  had  the  op- 
portunity of  seeing  him.  The  late  Lord  St. 
Helens  said,  that  when  he  came  to  Cambridge 
in  1770,  having  had  a  letter  of  introduction  to 
Gray,  he  received  a  visit  from  him.  He  was 
accompanied  by  Dr.  Gisborne,  Mr.  Stonhewer, 
and  JMr.  Palgrave,  and  they  walked  in  Indian 
file.  When  they  withdrew,  every  College- 
man  took  off  his  cap  as  they  passed,  a  consid- 
erable number  being  assembled  in  the  quad- 
rangle to  see  INIr.  Gray,  who  was  seldom  seen. 
I  asked,  he  added,  Mr.  Gray,  to  the  great  dis- 
may of  his  companions,  "  What  he  thought  of 
'  Garrick's  Jubilee  Ode '  just  published  ?  "  He 
answered,  "I  am  easily  pleased." 

The  political  opinions  of  Gray,  Walpole 
said  he  never  understood.  Sometimes  lie 
seemed  incUned  to  the  side  of  authority,  and 
sometimes  to  that  of  the  people.  "  I  remem- 
ber in  one  of  his  manuscript  letters  his  saying, 
'  You  know  how  much  I  dislike  the  spirit  of 
trade,'  which  was  then  rapidly  increasing." 
In  conversation,  Walpole  says,  "  that  Gray 
was  so  circumspect  in  his  usual  language,  that 


LIFE    OF   GRAY.  Lxxxi 

it  seemed  unnatural,  though  only  pure  Eng- 
lish." And  in  a  letter  to  George  Montague, 
he  writes,  '"  I  agree  with  you  most  absolutely 
in  your  opiniou  about  Gray :  he  is  the  worst 
company  in  the  world,  from  a  melancholy  turn, 
from  living  reclusely,  and  from  a  little  too 
much  dignity :  he  never  converses  easily ;  all 
his  words  are  measured  and  chosen,  and 
formed  into  sentences."  xVnd  again :  "My 
Lady  Ailesbury  has  been  much  diverted,  and 
so  will  you  too.  Gray  is  in  their  neighbor- 
hood. My  Lady  Carlisle  says.  He  is  extremely 
like  me  in  his  manner.  They  went  on  a  party 
to  dine  on  a  cold  loaf,  and  passed  the  day. 
Lady  A.  protests  that  he  never  ojiened  his 
lips  but  once,  and  then  only  said,  '  Yes,  my 
lady,  I  believe  so.'  "  Mr.  Xicholls,  vrho  made 
a  tour  with  him,  as  has  been  meiUioned,  the 
year  before  his  death,  says,  •'■  That  v/ith  t!ie 
society  at  Malvern  he  had  neither  inclination 
to  mix  much  in  conversation,  nor  mu'jh  facil- 
ity, had  he  been  willing.  This  arose  partly 
from  natural  reserve,  and  which  is  called  shy- 
ness, and  partly  from  having  lived  retired  in 
the  University  during  so  great  a  part  of  his 
life ;  where  he  had  lost,  as  he  told  me  himself, 
f 


Ixxxii  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

the  versatility  of  his  7nindr  This  account  is 
probably  true  euough,  as  regards  mixed  com- 
pany and  general  society ;  but  when  it  was 
worth  his  while  to  talk,  when  his  companion 
was  a  man  of  knowledge,  and  his  subject  one 
of  interest,  we  shall  find  a  very  different  rela- 
tion of  his  conversational  habits.  "  Gray's 
le.ters,"  says  Dr.  Beattie,  "very  much  resem- 
ble what  his  conversation  was :  he  had  none 
of  the  airs  either  of  a  scholar  or  a  poet ;  and 
though  on  these,  and  on  all  other  subjects,  he 
spoke  to  me  with  tlie  utmost  freedom,  and 
without  any  reserve,  he  was  in  general  com- 
pany much  more  silent  than  one  could  have 
wished."  He  writes  to  Sir  W.  Forbes:  "I 
am  sorry  you  did  not  see  Mr.  Gray  on  his 
return  ;  you  would  have  been  much  pleased 
w^ith  him.  Setting  aside  his  merit  as  a  poet 
(which,  however,  is  greater  in  my  opinion  than 
any  of  his  contemporaries  can  boast,  in  this  or 
any  other  nation),  I  find  him  possessed  of  the 
most  exact  taste,  the.  soimdest  judgment,  and 
the  most  extensive  learning.  He  is  happy  in 
a  singular  facility  of  expression.  His  compo- 
sition abounds  with  original  observations,  de- 
livered   i:i  no  ap})earaiice  of  sententious  for- 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Lxxx.ii 

mality,  and  seeming  to  arise  spontaneously, 
without  study  or  premeditation.  I  passed  two 
days  with  him  at  Glammis,  and  found  him  as 
easy  in  his  manner,  and  as  communicative  and 
frank  as  I  could  have  wished."  * 

Soon  after  Gray's  death,  a  character  of  him 
was  drawn  up  and  printed  by  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Temple,  of  whom  the  reader  will  find  some 
account  in  the  correspondence  which  has  been 
lately  published  between  Gray  and  Mr.  Nich- 
olls.  This  account  was  adopted  both  by  Mr. 
Mason  and  Dr.  Johnson,  as  impartial  and  ac- 
curate ;  and  Boswell  says  that  Mr.  Temple 
knew  Gray  well.  The  following  is  an  extract 
from  it :  "  Perhaps  Mr.  Gray  was  the  most 
learned  man  in  Europe.  He  was  equally 
acquainted  with  the  elegant  and  proper  parts 
of  science,  and  that  not  superficially,  but 
thoroughly.  He  knew  every  branch  of  his- 
tory, both  natural  and  civil ;  had  read  all  the 
original  histories  of  England,  France,  and 
Italy ;  was  a  great  antiquarian.  Criticism, 
metaphysics,  morals,  pohtics,  made  a  principal 
part  of  his  study.  Voyages  and  travels  of  all 
sorts  were   his  favorite  amusement;   and  he 

♦  See  Life  of  Beattie,  by  Sir  W.  Forbes,  Vol.  IT.  p.  321. 


Ixxxiv  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

had  a  fine  taste  in  prints,  paintings,  architec- 
ture, and  gardening.*  With  such  a  fund  of 
knov,ledge,  his  conversation  must  have  been 
equally  instructive  and  entertaining.  There 
is  no  character  without  some  speck  or  imper- 
fection ;  and  I  think  the  greatest  defect  in  his 
was  an  affectation  of  delicacy,  or  rather  effem- 
inacy, and  a  visible  fastidiousness,  or  contempt 
and  disdain  of  his  inferiors  in  science.  He 
had  also  in  some  degree  that  weakness  which 
disgusted  Voltaire  so  much  in  Congreve. 
Though  he  seemed  to  value  others  chiefly 
according  to  the  progress  they  had  made  in 
knowledge,  yet  he  would  rather  not  be  con- 

*  This  is  very  incorrect.  Gray  always  disclaimed  any 
skill  in  gardening,  and  held  it  in  little  estimation,  de- 
claring himself  only  charmed  with  the  wilder  parts  of 
unadorned  nature.  8ee  also  "  Mason's  English  Garden," 
Book  III.  25.  It  was  mountain  scenery  in  which  he  de- 
lighted. 1  remember  in  one  of  his  MS.  letters,  after  he 
had  retumed  from  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  his  burst 
of  delight,  and  saying,  "  One  ought  to  go  there  every 
year."  Sir  James  Mackintosh  observed,  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend,  ■•  In  the  beautiful  scenery  of  Bolton  Abbey,  Avhere 
I  have  been  since  I  began  this  note,  I  am  struck  by  the 
recollection  of  a  sort  of  merit  in  Gray,  which  is  not 
generally  observed;  that  he  was  the  first  discoverer  of 
the  beauties  of  nature  in  England,  and  has  marked  out 
the  course  of  every  picturesque  journey  that  can  be 
made  in  it." 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Ixxxv 

sidered  merely  as  a  man  of  letters;  and 
though  without  birth,  fortune,  or  station,  his 
dqeire  was  to  be  looked  upon  as  that  of  a  pri- 
vate independent  gentleman,  who  read  for  his 
amusement,"  &c. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  year  1769,  Mr. 
Nicholls  introduced  Mr.  de  Bonstetten,  then 
a  youth,  in  a  letter  from  Bath,  to  Gray's  no- 
tice. He  resided  at  Cambridge  some  months, 
during  which  time  he  enjoyed  daily  the  society 
of  Gray,  who  appears  to  have  been  quite  cap- 
tivated by  the  disposition  and  manners  of  the 
young  foreigner.  Sixty  years  after  this  time, 
and  just  before  his  death,  Bonstetten  printed  a 
little  volume  of  his  Recollections,  and  the  fol- 
lowing very  curious  account  of  Gray  is  to  be 
found  in  it :  "  Eighteen  years  before  my  resi- 
dence at  Nyon,  I  passed  some  months  at  Cam- 
bridge with  the  celebrated  poet  Gray,  in  almost 
as  much  intimacy  as  I  afterwards  did  with 
Matliison  ;  only  with  this  difference,  that  Gray 
was  thirty  years  older,  and  Mathison  sixteen 
years  younger.  My  gravity,  my  love  for  Eng- 
lish poetry,  which  I  read  with  Gray,  had  so 
subdued  and  softened  him  {siihjugue),  that  the 
difference  of  our  age  was  no  longer  felt.     I 


l:..vxvi  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

lodged  at  Cambridge,  at  a  coffee-house  close 
to  Pembroke  Hall.  Gray  lived  there,  buried 
in  a  kind  of  cloister,  which  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury had  not  removed.  The  town  of  Cam- 
bridge, with  its  solitary  college?,  was  nothing 
else  than  an  assemblage  of  monasteries,  where 
the  mathematics  and  some  sciences  took  the 
form  and  habit  of  the  theology  of  the  middle 
ages ;  handsome  conventional  buildings,  with 
long  and  silent  corridors  ;  solitary  figures  in 
black  gowns  ;  young  noblemen  metamorphosed 
into  monks,  with  square  caps  ;  everywhere  one 
was  reminded  of  monks,  by  the  side  of  the 
glory  of  Newton.  No  virtuous  female  cheered 
and  amused  the  lives  of  these  bookworms  in 
human  Ibrni ;  but  knowledge  sometimes  flour- 
ished in  the  deserts  of  the  heart.  Such  was 
Cambridge,  as  I  saw  it  in  1769.  What  a  con- 
trast between  the  life  of  Gray  at  Cambridge 
and  that  of  Mr.  Mathison  at  Nyon.  Gray,  in 
condemning  himself  to  live  at  Cambridge,  for- 
got that  the  genius  of  the  poet  languishes, 
w  hen  the  feelings  of  the  heart  are  dried  up. 
The  poetic  genius  was  so  extinguished  in  the 
gloomy  abode  at  Cambridge,  that  the  remem- 
brance of  his  poetry  ivas  odious  to  him.     He 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  Ixxr-n!! 

never  permitted  me  to  speak  to  him  about  it. 
AVhen  I  repeated  some  of  his  lines,  he  was  as 
silent  as  an  obstinate  child.  '  Why  don't  you 
answer  me  ? '  I  sometimes  said  ;  but  not  a 
word  could  I  get  from  his  lips.  I  saw  him 
every  evening  from  five  o'clock  till  twelve : 
we  read  together  Shakespeare,  whom  he  wor- 
shipped, and  Dryden  and  Pope  and  Milton, 
&c. ;  and  our  friendly  conversation  seemed 
never  to  be  exhausted.  I  related  to  Gray  the 
history  of  my  life,  and  of  my  country  ;  but  his 
life  was  a  closed  book  to  me  :  he  never  spoke 
to  me  of  himself.  With  Gray,  between  the 
present  and  the  past,  there  was  an  impassable 
gulf :  when  I  endeavored  to  approach  it,  dark 
clouds  and  shadows  covered  it.  I  believe 
that  Gray  was  never  in  love  ;  this  is  the  solu- 
tion of  the  enigma:  thence  resulted  a  misery 
of  heart,  which  contrasted  strongly  with  his 
brilliant  imagination,  and  which  was  the  tor- 
ment, instead  of  proving  the  happiness,  of  his 
lite.  Gray  had  at  once  gayety  in  his  mind, 
and  melancholy  in  his  character  ;  but  this 
melancholy  was  the  unsatisfied  demand  of  a 
repressed  sensibility,  existing  under  the  arctic 
pole  of  a  Cambridge  life,"  &c. 


Ixxxvlii  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

This  lively  and  dramatic  sketch  contains 
some  truth,  but  the  coloring  of  the  whole  is 
exaggerated.  That  Gray  should  dislike  to 
converse  about  his  poetry  might  possibly 
arise  from  the  conviction,  that  a  young  for- 
eigner, who  was  not  able  to  write  a  sentence 
of  English  correctly,  could  not  appreciate  it ; 
and  there  were  circumstances  also  connected 
with  Gray's  early  life  which  were  no  doubt 
painful  to  him  to  recollect ;  and  some,  too,  to 
which  he  obscurely  alludes  in  his  letters,  deeply 
affected  him,  that  were  occasioned  by  the  mis- 
behavior and  misfortune  of  one  whom  he  had 
called  his  friend.  Something  perhaps  might 
have  been  misunderstood  by  the  young  for- 
eigner, something  exaggerated  in  his  state- 
ment, and  not  carefully  remembered,  after  an 
interval  of  many  years.  It  must  also  be  re- 
marked, that  Gray's  constitution  was  enfeebled 
and  impaired  by  constant  attacks  of  hereditary 
gout,  and  other  painful  complaints,  destroying 
his  ease  and  disordering  his  frame.  He 
speaks  constantly  of  the  sleepless  night  and 
feverish  morning,  and  seems  seldom  to  have 
been  free  from  pain,  debility,  and  disease. 
Expressions  similar  to  the  following  may  be 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  Lxxx'x 

found  in  many  passages  in  his  diiTei-ent  jour- 
nals :  ''  Insomnia  crebra,  atque  expergiscenti 
surdus  quidem  doloris  sensus  :  frequens  etiam 
in  regione  sterni  oppressio,  et  cardialgia  gravis, 
fere  sempiterna."  But  there  are  also  many- 
passages  in  his  letters,  openmg  to  our  view 
habitual  lowness  of  spirits,  or  a  mental  un- 
easiness, expressing  itself  in  such  language  as 

the  following  :  "  I  should  like  to  be  like , 

and  think  that  everything  turns  out  for  the 
best  in  the  world ;  but  it  won't  do.  I  am 
stupid  and  low-spirited  ;  but  some  day  or 
other  all  this  must  come  to  a  conclusion."  * 
It  remains  now  to  speak  of  an  intended 
publication  in  English  literature,  mentioned 
by  Gray  in  an  advertisement  to  the  imitation 
of  the  Welsh  Odes,  which  was,  a  "  History  of 
English  Poetry."  It  appears  that  "Wai'burton 
had  communicated  to  Mason  a  paper  of  Pope's 

*  Partly  from  the  "  Explanations  of  the  late  Arch- 
deacoa  Oldershaw,"  partly  from  his  unpublished  corre- 
spondence, I  believe  that  I  am  particul-.n-ly  acquainted 
with  those  circumstances  that  spread  a  considerable 
gloom  over  Gray's  mind,  and  perhaps  permanently  af- 
fected his  spirits  in  the  manner  in  which  Mr.  Bonstettea 
has  described,  but  Avhich  it  is  quite  useless  to  draw  from 
the  obscurity  in  which  they  have  been  placed,  especially 
as  Gray's  own  character  is  totally  unaffected  by  them. 


xc  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

containing  the  first  sketch  for  a  work  of  i\  ^< 
nature,  and  which  was  printed  in  "  Ruffhead's 
Life  of  Pope."  "  Milton,"  says  Dry  den,  "  was 
the  paternal  son  of  Spenser,  and  Waller  of 
Fairfax  ;  for  we  have  our  lineal  descendants 
and  children,  as  well  as  other  families."  On 
this  principle.  Pope  drew  up  his  little  cata- 
logue of  the  English  poets,  and  Gray  was  so 
much  pleased  with  the  method  of  arrangement 
which  Pope  had  struck  out,  that,  on  Mason's 
agreeing  to  publish  them,  he  revised  and  con- 
siderably enlarged  the  plan.  He  meant  in  the 
introduction  to  ascertain  tlie  origin  of  rhyme ; 
to  give  specimens  of  the  Provencal,  Scaldic, 
British,  and  Saxon  poetry ;  and  when  the  dif- 
ferent sources  of  English  poetry  were  asccr- 
tnined,  the  history  Avas  to  commence  with  the 
school  of  Chaucer.  It  was  for  this  purpose 
that  he  wTote  his  Welsh  and  Norwegian  Odes, 
and  made  those  curious  and  elaborate  inquiries 
into  the  origin  of  rhyme  and  metre,  which  have 
been  subsequently  printed  by  Mr.  Mathias. 
He  also  transcribed  many  passages  from  Lyd- 
gate,  whose  merits  he  considered  had  been 
undervalued ;  and  I  possess  a  character  of 
Samuel  Daniel,  undoubtedly  intended  by  him 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  xoi 

for  this  work,  drawn  up  with  great  care,  and 
with  a  critical  examination  of  his  poetical 
beauties  and  defects. 

About  this  time,  however,  he  found  that 
Mr.  Thomas  Warton  was  engaged  in  a  similar 
undertaking ;  and,  fatigued  with  the  extent  of 
his  plan,  he  sent  it  to  him,  of  whose  abilities, 
from  his  Observations  on  Spenser,  he  enter- 
tained a  high  opinion.*  It  is  well  known  that 
Warton  did  not  adopt  that  kind  of  arrange- 
ment which  Pope  and  Gray  had  recommended, 
and  he  gave  his  reasons  for  departing  from  it 
in  the  Preface  to  his  History.  Gray  died 
some  years  before  Warton's  first  volume  ap- 
peared. 

From  poetry  to  music  is  a  natural  transi- 
tion ;  and  therefore  it  may  be  observed,  that 
Gray's  taste  in  music  was  excellent,  and 
formed  on  the  study  of  the  old  Italian  mas- 
ters, Avho  flourished  about  the  tune  of  Pero^o- 
lesi,  as  Marcello,  Leo,  and  Palestrina.  He 
performed  on  the  harpsichord,  and  sang  to  his 
own  accompaniment,  with  great  taste  and  feel- 

*  Gray  and  Mason  first  detected  the  impostures  of 
Chatterton.  See  Archaeological  Epistle  to  Dean  Milles, 
Stanza  XI.     (This  poem  was  Mason's  writing.) 


xc-ll  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

ing.  Mr.  Cole  says,  Gray  latterly  played  on 
the  piano-forte,  and  sang  to  Jiini^  but  not  with- 
out solicitation.* 

In  his  later  years  he  applied  himself  to 
Gothic  and  Saxon  architecture  with  such  in- 
dustry and  sagacity,  that  he  could  at  first  sight 
pronounce  on  the  precise  time  when  any  par- 
ticular part  of  our  cathedrals  was  erected. 
For  this  purpose,  he  trusted  less  to  written 
accounts  and  works  than  to  the  internal  evi- 
dence of  the  buildings  themselves.  He  in- 
vented also  several  terms  of  art,  the  better  to 
express  his  meaning  on  this  subject.  Of  her- 
aldry, to  which  he  applied  as  a  preparatory 
science,  he  was  a  considerable  master,  and  left 
behind  him  many  curious  genealogical  papers. 
He  told  Mr.  NichoUs,  that  he  was  deeply  read 
in  Dugdale,  Hearne,  Spelman,  and  others  of 

*  "  He  has  frequently  played  upon  the  harpsichord,  and 
sang  to  it  freely,  as  frequently  latterly  on  the  forte-piano. 
His  forte-piano  was  a  present  to  him  from  his  friend  Mr. 
Stonhewer,  which  at  his  death  he  bequeathed  to  him 
again.  Cole's  JIS.  Notes.  Gray's  friend,  Mr.  NichoUs, 
was  very  musical.  Mr.  Uvedale  Price  says  "  that  Gray 
was  not  partial  to  the  music  of  Handel;  but  used  to 
speak  with  praise  of  that  chorus  in  the  Oratorio  of  Jeph- 
thah, '  No  more  to  Ammon's  God  and  king.'  "  See  Es- 
says on  the  Picturesque,  Vol.  II.  p.  191. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xciu 

that  class ;  and  that  he  took  as  much  delight 
in  that  study  as  ever  he  did  ni  any  other. 
When  Mr.  Nicholls  expressed  his  surprise  to 
Gray  at  the  extent  of  his  reading,  he  said, 
"Why  should  you  be  surprised?  for  I  do 
nothing  else."  He  said,  "  He  knew  from  ex- 
perience how  much  might  be  done  by  a  person 
who  did  not  fling  away  his  time  on  middling 
and  inferior  authors,  and  read  with  method. 
He  thought  that  the  abundance  of  dictionaries 
of  different  kinds  was  a  bad  symptom  for  the 
literature  of  the  age,  because  real  and  pro- 
found learning  is  never  derived  from  sucli 
sources,  but  drawn  at  the  fountain-head ;  and 
they  who  are  content  to  pick  up  the  scanty 
and  superficial  information  which  can  be  ac- 
quired by  such  means  have  neither  the  spirit 
nor  the  industry  to  study  a  subject  throiigJi,  in 
the  original  authors:  nor  indeed  have  they 
any  further  demands  on  literature,  than  for  a 
sufhcient  supply  to  satisfy  their  vanity." 

As  the  life  of  Gray  advanced,  it  was  still 
marked  by  the  same  studious  and  secluded 
habits  ;  but  he  appears  gradually  to  have  left 
his  classical  studies  for  a  more  extended  circle 
of  reading,  including  history,  antiquities,  voy- 


xciv  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

ages,  and  travels ;  and  in  many  of  the  booKs 
in  liis  library,  as  Fabian's  Chronicles,  Claren- 
don, and  others,  the  extreme  attention  with 
which  he  read  is  seen  by  his  various  and  care- 
ful annotations,  and  by  the  margins  being  filled 
with  illustrations  and  corrections  drawn  from 
State  Papers,  and  other  original  documents. 
The  latest  period  of  his  life  seems  to  have 
been  very  much  occupied  in  attention  to  nat- 
ural history  in  all  its  varied  branches,  both  in 
the  study  of  books,  and  in  the  diligent  obser- 
vation of  nature.  He  kejDt  every  year  a 
pocket  diary  or  journal,  entering  daily  obser- 
vations on  the  state  of  the  weather,  on  the 
prevailing  currents  of  wind,  or  the  variations 
of  the  thermometer,  with  as  much  attention 
and  minuteness  as  would  be  found  in  a  nauti- 
cal almanac.  Other  columns  contained  a  floral 
calendar,  a  list  of  plants,  including  trees  and 
flowers,  in  the  order  in  which  they  awoke  to 
life  in  the  spring,  or  flowered  in  the  summer 
months,  or  decayed  with  the  dying  year ;  and 
this  was  done  with  a  patience  and  minuteness 
almost  incredible.  Yet  it  formed  only  one 
portion  of  the  labor  bestowed  on  these  inqui- 
ries.    In  his  journals,  of  which  I  have   met 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xcv 

with  several,  are  accounts  of  all  the  birds,  fish, 
insects,  animals,  and  plants  seen  by  him  in 
different  localities  in  his  travels,  for  the  most 
part  described  in  Latin,  and  all  arranged  ac- 
cording to  the  systematic  order  of  Linnaeus, 
and  that  with  such  laborious  distinction,  that 
(as  an  instance)  the  plants  he  saw  when  stay- 
ing with  Mr.  Robinson  at  Denton,  in  Kent, 
are  divided  into  the  hill,  field,  and  those  seen 
by  the  roadside,  or  on  old  walls  and  ruins. 
When  at  Hartlepool,  near  Durham,  he  records 
his  conversation  with  the  fishermen  on  some 
species  of  fish  which  he  regarded  as  doubtful, 
and  they  are  all  elaborately  described. 

The  same  kind  of  botanical  register  he  kept 
at  Old  Park,  and  wherever  he  went ;  and  all 
catalogues  of  exhibitions  and  museums  of 
natu]'al  history  inspected  by  him  were  noted, 
generally  with  reference  to  the  nomenclature 
of  Linn^us.  But  the  greatest  monument  of 
his  talent  and  knowledge  is  the  interleaved 
copy  of  the  French  edition  of  Linmi^us's 
"  Systema  Naturae,"  which  work,  we  are  told, 
during  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  was  always 
lying  on  his  table.  It  is  entirely  filled  both 
in   the  mar^rins  and   in  interlineations  of  the 


xcvi  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

printed  text,  and  also  in  the  blank  leaves  in- 
serted, with  additions  to  Linnaeus  from  other 
works  of  travel  or  science,  or  with  alterations 
and  amendments  of  his  own,  especially  noting 
where  the  fauna  of  Sweden  differed  from  that 
of  England.  It  is  also  adorned  and  illustrated 
with  designs  and  figures  of  insects  and  bird-^, 
or  portions  of  them,  drawn  with  accuracy  and 
elegance,  both  in  the  natural  size,  and  mag- 
iiiiied. 

This  book  proves  that  he  had  a  very  pro- 
found knowledge  of  the  whole  system  of  na- 
ture, as  arranged  by  the  great  Swedish  nat- 
uralist ;  and  I  have  also  seen  letters  from  him 
to  different  friends,  who  had  sent  him  some 
natural  productions,  as  rare  birds,  fish,  &c., 
giving  copious  and  detailed  information  on  the 
subject.  Occasionally  he  altered  the  Latinity 
of  Linnaeus,*  and  sometimes  amused  himself 
in  giving  the  technical  descriptions  in  a  met- 
rical form.  The  following  lines  express  the 
genuine  character  of  the  fifth  order  of  insects, 
and  are  formed  chiefly  from  the  language  of 
the  Swedish  naturalist. 

*  See  instances  of  this  published  in  Mr.  Miithias's  edi- 
tion of  Grav's  Works. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xcvii 

Hymexoptera. 
At  vitreas  alas,  jaculumque  Hymenoptera  caudse 
Fceraineo  data  tela  gregi,  raaribusque  negata. 
Telum  abdit  spirale  Cynips,  morsuque  tniuatur: 
Maxillas  Tenthredo  movet,  serramque  bivalvem. 
Ichneumon  gracili  triplex  abdomine  telura. 
Haurit  Apis  lingua  iiicurva  quod  vindicat  ease. 
Sphex  alam  expandit  lEevem,  gladiumque  recondit. 
Ala3  ruga  notat  Vespam,  caudceque  venenum. 
Squainula  Formicam  tergi,  telumque  pedestrem. 
Dum  minor  alata  volitat  cum  conjuge  conjux 
Mutilla  impenuis,  sed  cauda  spicula  vibrat. 

Hemiptera. 

Dimidiam  rostrata  gerunt  Hemiptera  crustam; 
Foemina  serpit  humi  interdum,  volat  aethere  conjux: 
Rostro  Nepa  rapax  pollet,  Chelisque;   Cicada 
Remigio  alarum  et  rostrato  pectore  saltat: 
Tela  Clmex  inflexa  gerit,  cruce  complicat  alas: 
Notonecta  crucem  quoque  fert,  remosque/jec/a/es 
Cornua  Aphis  caudae  et  rostrum;  saepe  erigit  alas: 
Deprimit  has  Chermes,  dum  saltat,  pectore  gibbo. 
Coccus  iners  caudae  setas,  volitante  marito. 
Thrips  alas  angusta  gerit,  caudamque  recurvam. 

Lepidoptera. 
Squamam  alae,  linguae  spiram  Lepidoptera  jactant; 
Papilio  clavam  et  squaraosas  subrigit  alas. 
Prismaticas  Sphinx  antennas,  medioque  tumeiites; 
At  conicas  gravis  extendit  sub  nocte  Phalcena. 

But  Gray's  labors  are  often  seen  extending 
even  beyond  what  we  must  conceive  to  be  the 
verge  of  rational  inquiry,  considering  the  little 
a<h-antage  to  be  derived  from  such  long  a:id 


xc>iii  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

laborious  exertions.  I  possess,  among  several 
others  of  his  books,  his  copy  of  "  Voyage  de 
Bergeron  "  ;  and  all  through  this  book,  which 
is  a  thick  quarto  volume,  he  has  followed  tlie 
author  in  his  account  of  the  names  and  suc- 
cession of  the  Persian,  Tartar,  and  Chinese 
dynasties ;  sometimes  illustrating,  sometimes 
enlarging  his  account  with  the  Fame  apparent 
pains  which  he  had  previously  taken  in  his 
classical  and  poetical  studies.  As  one  example 
of  this  minute  and  extended  curiosity,  Berge- 
ron says,  speaking  of  Bagdo,  "  second  Jils  de 
HoccatO'  Cham,  il  fut  noye  avec  un  nomhre  des 
siens"  Gray  first  adds,  ''  Bagdo  was  nephew 
to  Oglai.  Bergeron  is  wrong:  the  drowning 
took  place  in  1235,  and  Bagdo  Khan  was  cer- 
tainly alive  many  years  after:  he  died  in 
1256."  Again,  Bergeron  says,  "  Mango-Cham 
fut  noye'' :  Gray  adds  in  the  margin,  "  Mun- 
ca9a,  or  IMango  Khan,  was  not  drowned,  but 
in  reality  slain  in  China  at  the  siege  of  Ho- 
chew  in  1256."  Another  traveller  had  said, 
"  The  name  of  this  king  was  Abassidus- 
Ahmed'':  Gray  adds,  "Ahmed  Emir  al  Mu- 
menin  ;  this  Abassid,  surntimed  Al-Nasor,  was 
fifty-second   khaliff,  but   he  came  not    to  the 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  xcix 

throne  till  a.  d.  1179 ;  so  that  the  khaliff  then 
reigning  must  be  Hassan-Al-Moothaday,  his 
predecessor."  He  corrects  another  statement 
of  the  traveller  Rubriques  thus :  '•  It  was  not 
Bates-Khan,  but  Jarmagan,  Ogtai's  general, 
who  defeated  Cai  Khosru  the  Second,  sur- 
named  Gaiatheddin,  the  eighth  Selginmid  sul- 
tan of  Asia  Minor  in  1342."  And  in  this 
manner  he  has  filled  the  margins  of  a  thick 
quarto  volume  of  Oriental  travels  with  very 
elaborate  annotations,  and  corrections  of  the 
different  authors,  all  written  in  the  most  care- 
ful and  delicate  hand;  and  has  followed  the 
author  through  the  whole  of  this  elaborate 
work,  employed  on  subjects  so  utterly  remote 
from  all  common  curiosity  and  interest,  with 
the  same  critical  and  patient  investigation,  as 
if  his  learning  was  particularly  directed  in 
that  channel,  or  that  he  was  meditating  a  work 
on  similar  subjects.  His  copy  of  ^' Liste  des 
Insectes,"  which  I  also  possess,  is  annotated 
on  in  a  similar  way;  and  the  margin  of  his 
copy  of  the  "  Historia  Animalium "  of  Aris- 
totle, in  the  edition  of  Sylburgius,  is  crotvded 
with  notes  and  explanations.  His  copy  of 
"  Entinck's  London  and  its   Environs,"  in  six 


c  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

volumes,  8vo,  is  full  of  remarks  and  correc- 
tions on  the  architecture,  sculpture,  &c.,  of  the 
different  buildings  in  the  metropolis ;  and 
there  is  another  copy  of  the  same  work  in  the 
library  of  Nuneham,  equally  full  of  his  obser- 
vations, from  which  Mr.  Pennant  was  allowed 
to  take  materials  for  his  work. 

One  most  important  branch  of  study  alone 
passed  unnoticed  by  him,  or  at  least  was  only 
casually  pursued;  I  mean  that  of  iheolorjy : 
and  it  is  singular,  that  in  one  of  his  later  let- 
ters, I  found  Mason  writing  to  him,  "  I  wish  I 
could  get  you  to  read  Jeremy  Taylor,  the 
Shakespeare  of  English  prose."  Spenser, 
Shakespeare,  and  Dryden  were  his  favorite 
poets;  and  he  also  thought  highly  of  Pope. 
He  placed  Lord  Clarendon  at  the  head  of  our 
historians ;  and,  for  style,  he  thought  that  of 
Conyers  Middleton  much  to  be  approved.  Of 
the  "  Clarissa  "  of  Richardson,  he  spoke  in  the 
highest  terms ;  he  said,  "  He  knew  no  instance 
of  a  tale  so  well  told " ;  and  mentioned  with 
the  highest  commendation  the  dramatic  pro- 
priety and  consistency  of  the  character,  pre- 
served from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  in  all 
the  situations  and  circumstances.     Pie  thouglit 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  ci 

Goldsmith  a  genuine  poet :  Gibber's  comedies 
he  considered  excellent ;  and  he  said  that 
"  Vanbrugh's  plays  were  much  better  than  his 
architecture." 

His  French  reading  was  extensive :  he  es- 
teemed very  highly  the  dramas  of  Voltaire 
and  the  Emile  of  Rousseau;  but  his  knowl- 
edge of  Italian  literature  did  not  extend  be- 
yond the  writers  of  the  first  class ;  for  Mr. 
Mathias  says  that  Gray  had  never  read  Fili- 
caia,  Guidi,  and  the  other  lyrical  poets  highly 
esteemed  in  Italy.  In  his  correspondence, 
printed  and  manuscript,  many  other  literary 
opinions  and  judgments  will  be  found,  both  on 
the  older  authors  and  on  the  writings  of  his 
contemporaries. 

But  it  is  time  that  this  narrative  should 
draw  to  a  close  :  and  as  Gray's  acquirements, 
however  extensive,  must  be  considered  second- 
ary to  his  fine  poetical  talents,  I  cannot,  I 
think,  form  a  better  conclusion,  than  by  giv- 
ing a  sketch  of  the  latter,  as  drawn  by  Sir 
James  Mackintosh,  with  his  usual  solidity  of 
judgment  and  delicacy  of  taste.  "  Gray," 
he  writes,  following  some  observations  on 
the  merits  of  Goldsmith,  "  was  a  poet  of  a 


cii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

far  higher  order,  and  of  almost  an  opposite 
kind  of  merit.  Of  all  English  poets,  he  was 
the  most  finished  artist.  He  attained  the 
highest  degree  of  splendor  of  which  poetical 
style  seems  to  be  capable.  If  Virgil  and  his 
scholar  Racine  may  be  allowed  to  have  united 
so  much  more  ease  with  th^ir  elegance,  no 
other  poet  approaches  Gray  in  this  kind  of 
excellence.  The  degree  of  poetical  invention 
diffused  over  such  a  style,  the  abundance  of 
taste  and  of  fancy  necessary  to  produce  it,  and 
the  art  with  which  the  offensive  boldness  of 
imagery  is  polished  away,  are  not,  indeed, 
always  perceptible  to  the  common  reader, 
nor  do  they  convey  to  my  mind  the  same 
species  of  gratification  which  is  felt  from  the 
perusal  of  those  poems  which  seem  to  be  the 
unpremeditated  effusions  of  enthusiasm.  But 
to  the  eye  of  the  critic,  and  more  especially 
to  the  artist,  they  afford  a  new  kind  of  pleas- 
ure, not  incompatible  with  a  distinct  jDercep- 
tion  of  the  art  employed,  and  somewhat  simi- 
lar to  the  grand  emotions  excited  by  the 
reflection  of  the  skill  and  toil  exerted  on  the 
construction  of  a  magnificent  palace.  They 
can   only   be   classed   among    the    secondary 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  ciii 

pleasures  of  poetry,  but  they  can  never  exist 
without  a  great  degree  of  its  higher  excel- 
lences. Almost  all  his  poetry  was  lyrical ; 
that  species  which,  issuing  from  a  mind  in 
the  highest  state  of  excitement,  requires  an 
intensity  of  feeling  which,  for  a  long  composi- 
tion, the  genius  of  no  poet  could  support. 
Those  who  complained  of  its  brevity  and 
rapidity,  only  confessed  their  own  inability 
to  follow  the  movements  of  poetical  inspira- 
tion.* Of  the  two  grand  attributes  of  the 
Ode,  Dryden  has  displayed  the  enthusiasm, 
Gray  exhibited  the  magnificence.  He  is  also 
the  only  modern  English  writer  whose  Latin 
verses  deserve  general  notice  ;  but  we  must 
lament  that  such  difficult  trifles  had  diverted 
his  genius  from  its  natural  objects.f 

*  In  another  place,  this  same  writer  observes :  "  The 
obscurity  of  the  Ode  on  '  The  Progress  of  Poetry '  arises 
from  the  variety  of  the  subjects,  the  rapidity  of  the 
transitions,  the  boldness  of  the  imagery,  and  the  splen- 
dor of  the  language.  To  those  who  are  incapable  of  that 
intense  attention  which  the  higher  order  of  poetry  re- 
quires, and  which  poetical  sensibility  always  produces, 
tiiere  is  no  obscurity.  In  '  Tlie  Bard,'  some  of  these 
causes  of  obscurity  ai-e  lessened:  it  is  more  impassioned, 
and  less  magnificent;  but  it  has  more  brevity  and  ab- 
ruptness. It  is  a  lyric  drama,  and  this  structure  is  a 
new  source  of  obscurity." 

t  I  don't  quite  catch  the  writer's  meaning  here,  for  ali. 


civ  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

"  In  his  letters  has  been  shown  the  descrip- 
tive power  of  the  poet ;  and  in  new  combina- 
tions of  generally  familiar  words,  which  he 
seems  to  have  caught  from  Madame  de  Se- 
vigne  (though  it  must  be  said  he  was  some- 
what quaint),  he  was  eminently  h<*i{)]iy.  It 
may  be  added,  that  he  deserves  the  compara- 
tively trifling  praise  of  having  been  the  most 
learned  jDoet  since  Milton."  * 

To  what  Sir  James  Mackintosh  has  ob- 
served on  Gray's  letters  and  their  merits,  I 
may  add,  that  Cowper  (whose  own  letters  in 
another  style  are  matchless)  says,  "  I  once 
thought  Swift's  letters  the  best  that  could  be 
written,  but  I  like   Gray's   better.     His  hu- 

Gray's  Latin  verses  were  written  when  he  was  young; 
and,  from  what  I  have  seen,  it  appears  to  me,  that  in  his 
later  life  he  had  lost  his  facility,  and  perhaps  some  of  his 
correctness,  in  compositions  in  that  language,  Avhether  in 
prose  or  verse.  However,  occasionally  to  compose  in  a  lan- 
guage that  we  understand,  and  that  we  love,  is  a  natural 
desire;  and  we  may  imitate,  without  the  hope  of  com- 
peting, with  the  great  masters  of  Latin  song.  And  such 
were  the  rational  amusements,  in  their  later  years,  of 
two  remarkable  persons  of  the  present  age,  who  united 
the  cliaracter  of  the  scholar  and  the  statesman,  and 
who  preserved  the  love  of  their  early  studies,  amidst 
tlie  more  onerous  duties  and  employments  of  their  riper 
years:  I  mean,  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley,  and  Lord  Grcn- 
Ville. 
*  /See  "  Life  of  Sir  James  Mackintosh,"  Vol.  IL  p.  172 


LIFE   OF   GRAY,  ev 

mor,  or  his  wit,  or  whatever  it  is  to  be 
called,  is  never  ill-natured  or  offensive,  yet 
I  think  equally  poignant  with  the  Dean's."* 
And  yet  IVIr.  Mason  did  not  do  justice  to  his 
friend,  nor  perform,  according  to  my  opinion, 
the  duties  of  an  editor  with  the  required  fidel- 
ity. There  is  not  a  single  letter  of  Gray's,  in 
the  whole  volume  of  Mr.  Mason's,  printed 
without  alteration  of  some  kind,  omission,  or 
transposition.  Almost  all  his  humorous  anec- 
dotes, and  lively  stories,  and  amusing  accounts 
of  public  officers  and  political  characters  are 
omitted,  and  passages  of  3Iason's  own  composi- 
tion are  substituted  in  the  place.  This  I  dis- 
covered unexpectedly,  when  the  "  Wharton 
Correspondence "  was  intrusted  to  my  care  ; 
and  I  found  the  same  system  pursued  through 
the  other  letters  which  have  since  come  into 
my  hands,  containing  those  to  Dr.  Brown,  and 
in  the  whole  volume  of  correspondence  be- 
tween Gray  and  Mason  himself.  That  he 
was  not  himself  satisfied  with  his  method  of 
sj'stematic  alteration  may  be  seen  in  a  letter 
of  his  to  Mr.  Nicholls,  which  I  lately  printed  : 
"  Mr.  Mason  returns  many  thanks  to  Mr.  Nich- 

*  See  "  Cowper's  Letters,"  by  Haylcy,  Vol.  TI.  p.  231, 
4to. 


ovi  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

oils,  for  the  use  he  has  permitted  him  to 
make  of  these  letters.  He  will  find  that  much 
liberty  has  been  taken  in  transposing  parts  of 
them  for  the  press,  and  will  see  the  reason  for 
it.  It  were,  however,  to  be  wished,  th:it  tlie 
originals  might  be  so  disposed  of  as  not  to  im- 
peach the  editor's  fidelity,  but  that  he  leaves  to 
]Vli\  NichoUs's  discretion ;  for  people  of  com- 
mon sense  will  think  the  liberty  he  has  used 
as  very  venial."  Mr.  Nicholls,  however,  did 
not  approve  Mason's  reasons,  nor  comply  with 
his  request  of  destroying  the  original  corre- 
spondence, which  has  since  been  printed. 
When  the  Wharton  manuscript  was  returned, 
it  was  found  that  Mason  had  not  only  erased 
many  passages,  but  had  also  cut  others  out  of 
the  volume.  In  the  letters  to  Dr.  Brown  in- 
numerable are  the  various  parts  completely 
erased  by  him  ;  and  he  has  treated  in  the 
same  way  the  most  curious  and  interesting  of 
all  Gray's  correspondence,  that  with  himself. 
It  has  been  said,  "  that  Mason  repaid  Gray's 
long  friendship  and  faithful  services  with  an 
edition  of  his  works,  so  judiciously  selected 
and  elegantly  arranged,  as  to  jDut  to  shame 
any  subsequent  attempt  of  tlie  same  nature." 


LIFE   OF  CRAY.  cvii 

He  who  delivered  this  opinion  had  eveiy  rea- 
son to  be  confident  of  its  justness,  for  he  Iiad 
not  seen,  nor  did  he  know  the  nature  of  any 
of  the  original  materials ;  and  as  relates  to  the 
elegance  with  which  the  biographical  narrative 
is  conducted,  and  the  judiciousness  with  which 
the  outline  is  drawn,  we  are  quite  willing  to 
allow  the  largest  share  of  praise ;  but  this 
same  elegance  need  not  have  been  purchased 
at  the  expense  of  truth;  and  we  naturally  ex- 
pect, that  the  sacred  deposit  of  the  remains  of 
deceased  persons,  in  the  hands  of  a  friend, 
should  be  treated  with  a  conscientious  delicacy 
due  to  its  worth.  Besides,  in  his  aim  at  ele- 
gance. Mason  gave  up  the  power  of  rei:)resent- 
ing  the  full  value  of  Gray's  merits  as  a  letter 
writer.  Of  the  whole  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Nicholls,  no  more  than  five  letters  are 
selected,  not  more  than  a  quarter  of  those 
written  to  Dr.  Wharton,  and  very  small  parts 
of  those  that  passed  between  Dr.  Broun  and 
himself.  What  would  have  been  said,  had 
the  Sevigne  or  Walpole  correspondence  been 
treated  in  the  same  manner  ?  * 

*  The    Quarterly  Reviewer,   Dr.   Whifaker,  me>itioiis 
the  faults,  arising   principally  from  want  of   eriidirio;i. 


cviii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

We  now  conclude  with  the  following  inter- 
esting letter  from  the  late  Mr.  Jacob  Bryant, 
containing  his  recollections  of  Gray  when  he 
was  at  Eton  with  him,  and  which  supplies 
several  particulars  overlooked  by  Mason,  which 
all  admirers  of  Gray  must  be  grateful  to  re- 
ceive :  — 

"  Dear  Sir,* — As  the  memory  of  Mr.  Gray 
is  with  you  an  article  of  much  regard,  and  as 
everything  that  can  conduce  to  the  knowledge 
of  his  life  and  character  must  be  acceptable,  I 
will  take  the  liberty  to  lay  before  you  a  por- 
tion of  intelligence,  which  I  believe  has  never 
been  fully  given,  and  which  can  now  only  be 
afforded  by  myself.  In  this  narrative  will  be 
included  an  answer  to  that  question  which  you 
were  pleased  to  desire  me  to  explain. 

"  My  first  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Gray  and 

that  are  to  be  found  in  Mason's  volume      The  following 
is  a  curious  specimen :  Gray's  hne,  — 

"Et  modo  rata  mala  vellere  j>oma  manu." 
Mason's  note,  —  '  So  the  original:  there  is  a  peculiar  ob- 
scurity in  the  line,  arising  from    the    synonymes  mnla 
and  pomaJ'  !  !  ! 

*  It  does  not  appear  to  whom  this  letter  was  addressed, 
but  probably  to  some  person  who  intended  to  publish 
memoirs  of  the  poet. 


L!Fi:   OF   CRAV.  ^.:^ 

his  friend,  Mr.  Horatio  lYalpole  (the  late 
Lord  Orford),  was  at  the  latter  end  of  the 
year  1729,  at  which  time  I  came  first  to  Eton. 
It  was  my  fortune  to  be  placed  in  the  fourth 
form,  nearly  at  the  same  distance  from  each, 
—  the  former  being  about  four  or  five  boys 
below,  and  Mr.  Walpole  as  many  above  me. 
Hence  I  was  well  acquainted  with  them  both, 
but  not  with  that  intimacy  which  subsisted 
between  these  two. 

"  At  this  early  time  of  which  I  speak,  Mr. 
Gray  was  in  mourning  for  his  uncle,  Mr.  An- 
trobus,  who  had  been  an  assistant  at  Eton, 
and,  after  his  resignation,  lived  and  died  there. 
I  remember  he  made  an  elegant  little  figure 
in  his  sable  dress,  for  he  had  a  very  good  com- 
plexion and  fine  hair,  and  appeared  to  much 
advantage  among  the  boys  who  were  near  him 
in  the  school,  and  who  were  more  rouo-h  and 
rude.  Indeed,  both  Mr.  Gray  and  his  friend 
were  looked  upon  as  too  delicate,  upon  which 
account  they  had  few  associates,  and  never 
engaged  m  any  exercise,  nor  partook  of  any 
boyish  amusement.  Hence  they  seldom  were 
in  the  fields,  at  least  they  took  only  a  distant 
view  of  those  who  pursued  their  different  di- 


ex  LIFE   OF   GRAY. 

versions.  Some,  therefore,  who  were  severe, 
treated  them  as  feminine  characters,  on  ac- 
count of  their  too  great  delicacy,  and  some- 
times a  too  fastidious  behavior.  Mr.  Walpolc 
long  time  afterwards  used  to  say,  that  Gray 
was  never  a  hoy.  This  was  allowed  by  many 
who  remembered  him,  but  in  an  acceptation 
very  different  from  that  which  his  noble  friend 
intended.  These  circumstances  are  alluded  to 
by  the  author  of  the  '  Pursuits  of  Literature,' 
when  in  his  book  he  speaks  of  '  master-misses ' 
being  offended.  Mr.  Gray  was  so  averse  to 
all  rough  exercise,  that  I  am  confident  he  v>'as 
never  on  horseback. 

'^  They  were  both  good  scholars  ;  and  though 
I  do  not  remember  Mr.  Gray  being  particu- 
larly noticed  either  by  the  master  or  by  his 
compeers,  yet  his  compositions  were  very  good. 
One,  I  recollect,  was  upon  the  old  story  of 
words  freezing  in  northern  air,  which  he  made 
when  he  was  rather  low  in  the  fifth  form :  l.iit 
I  can  only  call  to  mind  part  of  two  verses  uion 
the  consequences  of  the  supposed  thaw  :  — 

'  pluvifeque  loquaces 
Descendere  jugis,  et  garrulus  ingruit  iniber.' 

"  From  this  fragment  a  judgment  may  be 
formed  of  his  early  taste  and  proficiency. 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  cxi 

"  At  the  same  early  time  of  life  he  was 
acquainted  with  Mr.  West,  who  was  son  to 
the  chancellor  of  that  name  in  Ireland.  I 
also  knew  him  well,  and  looked  ujDon  him  as 
an  extraordinary  genius.  Two  specimens  of 
his  compositions  were  preserved  by  me,  and 
have  since  been  printed.  There  also  survives 
a  curious  parody  upon  the  fourth  ode  of  the 
fourth  book  of  Horace,  which  abounds  with 
much  good  humor,  very  happily  expressed. 
He  was  superior  to  Mr.  Gray  in  learning,  and 
to  everybody  near  him.  In  a  letter  of  ]\Ir. 
Gray  to  him,  mention  is  made  of  versifying 
when  asleep,  for  which,  he  says,  Mr.  West 
was  once  famous.  This  is,  I  believe,  founded 
in  truth  ;  for  I  remember  some  who  were  of 
the  same  house  mentioning  that  he  often  com- 
posed in  his  dormant  state,  and  that  he  wrote 
down  in  the  morning  what  he  had  conceived 
in  the  night.  He  was,  like  his  friend,  quite 
faultless  in  respect  to  morals  and  behavior, 
and,  like  many  great  geniuses,  often  very 
eccentric  and  absent.  One  of  his  friends,  who 
partook  of  the  same  room,  told  me,  that  West, 
when  at  night  composing,  would  come  in  a 
thouditful  mood  to  him  at  his  table,  and  care- 


cxii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

fully  snufF  his  candle,  and  then  return  quite 
satisfied  to  his  own  dim  taper,  which  he  left 
unrepaired.  This,  he  said,  he  had  often  ex- 
perienced. In  the  seventh  letter  to  Mr.  Gray, 
he  encloses  to  him  a  most  noble  and  pathetic 
composition,  which  some  good  judges  have 
thought  hardly  ever  equalled.  Though  he 
lived  four  or  five  years  afterwards,  yet  he 
seems  in  this  poem  to  have  had  a  melancholy 
forecast  that  his  life  was  not  of  long  duration. 
Mr.  Gray's  poem,  '  De  Principiis  Cogitandi^ 
would  have  been,  if  finished,  a  work  of  uncom- 
mon merit  and  consequence :  the  fragment  is 
inestimable. 

"  When  Mr.  Gray  went  to  Peter-House,  in 
Cambridge,  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  meet 
his  friend  Mr.  Walpole,  who  came  to  the  Uni- 
versity about  the  same  time  ;  hence  their  inti- 
macy continued.  As  I  was  near  Mr.  Walpole, 
it  afforded  me  some  oj)portunities  of  seeing 
them  both  very  often.  They  were  alike  stu- 
dious and  regular,  and  still  delicate  to  a  degree 
of  fastidiousness,  which  was  sometimes  at- 
tended with  marks  of  contempt.  This  some 
years  afterwards  was  the  cause  of  much  vexa- 
tion and  trouble  to  Mr.  Gray,  from  which  his 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  cxiii 

great  learning  and  other  good  qualities  should 
have  exempted  him. 

"  When  Mr.  Walpole  set  out  upon  his  trav- 
els, Mr.  Gray  accompanied  him,  and  they 
proceeded  for  a  long  time  very  amicably. 
But  that  delicacy,  and  those  nice  feelings, 
which  led  them  to  take  offence  with  others, 
began  now,  for  want  of  a  more  distant  object, 
to  operate  against  themselves.  Some  little 
jealousies  and  disgusts  arose,  and  INIr.  Gray 
separated  himself  from  his  friend,  and  came 
back  to  England. 

"Mr.  Walpole  returned  soon  after,  and 
took  a  house  at  Windsor.  This  affords  me  an 
opportunity  of  mentioning  the  two  most  excel- 
lent poems  of  JVIr.  Gray,  and  the  cause  of 
their  production.  The  first  is  the  'View  of 
Eton  College,'  the  other  the  '  Elegy  written 
in  a  Churchyard,'  which  was  composed  some 
years  after  the  former. 

"  The  year  in  which  Mr.  Walpole  came  to 
Windsor  was  1742,  at  which  time  it  was  my 
good  fortune  to  live  at  Eton.  By  these 
means  I  had  often  an  opportunity  of  seeing 
him.  He  had  not  resided  there  long,  when 
he  heard  that  Mr.  Gray  was  with  his  relations 
h 


cxiv  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

at  Stoke.  He  accordingly  sent  him  a  kind 
letter,  with  overtures  of  reconciliation,  and  a 
desire  to  see  him.  JNIr.  Gray  very  gladly  set 
out  to  renew  his  acquaintance,  and  as  in  his 
way  he  walked  through  the  playfields  at  Eton, 
he  saw  the  boys  engaged  in  their  different 
diversions,  and  a  universal  harmony  j:)revail- 
ing.  The  late  unhappy  disagreement  and 
separation  were  at  that  time  uppermost  in  his 
mind;  and  when  he  contemplated  this  scene 
of  concord  and  boyish  happiness,  he  could  not 
help,  in  his  melancholy  mood,  forming  a  con- 
trast. He  was  led  to  consider  the  feuds  and 
quaiTels  which  were  likely  one  day  to  ensue, 
when  all  that  harmony  and  happiness  was  to 
cease,  and  enmity  and  bitterness  were  to  suc- 
ceed. He  even  went  so  far  as  to  comprehend 
and  anticipate  all  the  dreadful  evils  to  \a  hich 
mankind  are  hable.  It  is  a  gloomy  picture, 
but  finely  executed ;  and  whoever  reads  tlie 
description  with  this  clew,  will  find  that  it  was 
formed  from  a  scene  before  his  eyes.  The 
poet  saw  and  experimentally  felt  what  he  so 
masterly  describes.  I  lived  at  that  time  al- 
most upon  the  very  spot  which  gave  birth  to 
these  noble  ideas,  and  in  consequence  of  it 
saw  the  author  very  often. 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  nxv 

"  The  other  poem,  '  Written  in  a  Country- 
Churchyard,'  is,  by  the  editor  of  Mr.  Gray's 
*  Life,'  supposed  to  have  been  composed  about 
the  same  time  as  the  former :  but  it  seems  to 
be  a  mistake.  It  took  its  rise  from  the  fol- 
*  lowing  circumstances,  some  of  which  are  men- 
tioned by  the  editor,  but  others  there  are 
which  were  not  known  to  him.  When  Lady 
Cobham  resided  at  her  house  at  Stoke,  Mr. 
Gray  was  at  no  great  distance,  in  the  same 
parish.  A  noble  duke,  who  was  then  at  Eton 
school,  and  is  still  living,  used  often  to  go  over 
and  dine  with  that  lady,  and  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Purt,  his  tutor,  used  to  accompany  them. 
One  day  Lady  Cobham  asked  Mr.  Purt  if  he 
knew  Mr.  Gray,  a  gentleman  in  her  neighbor- 
hood. He  said  that  he  knew  him  very  well ; 
that  he  was  much  respected  for  his  learning, 
and  was  the  author  of  the  celebrated  poem, 
styled  the  'View  of  Eton  College.'  Upon 
this,  next  morning,  two  ladies,  who  were  then 
at  Lady  Cobham's,  sallied  out  to  make  Mr. 
Gray  a  visit.  These  were  Lady  Schaub  and 
Miss  Harriet  Speed,  who  afterwards  married 
Count  Very  of  Savoy,  both  persons  of  no 
common  wit  and  vivacit}\     They  did  not  find 


cxvi  LIFE    OF   GRAY. 

him  at  home.  They,  however,  entered  the 
house,  and  seem  to  have  caused  no  small 
alarm  to  the  ancient  mother  and  aunt.  Hav- 
ing obtained  pen  and  paper,  they  left  an  invi- 
tation from  Lady  Cobham  to  Mr.  Gray,  to 
dine  with  her  the  next  day.  He  accordingly 
went,  and,  as  we  may  well  imagine,  was  very 
graciously  received.  This  event  gave  birth  to 
the  '  Long  Story,'  which  poem  has  certainly 
merit;  but  there  is  throughout  an  attempt 
towards  humor,  which  is  not  always  happily 
carried  on,  nor  was  it  properly  an  ingredient 
in  Mr.  Gray's  original  composition. 

"  After  this,  when  in  the  country,  he  was 
continually  at  Stoke  House ;  and  this  always 
happened  in  the  summer  and  autumnal  months. 
When  he  returned  home  late  in  the  evening, 
he  was  obliged  to  pass  by  the  churchyard, 
which  was  almost  close  to  the  house,  and  he 
would  sometimes  deviate  into  it,  and  there 
spend  a  melancholy  moment.  The  stillness 
and  solemnity  of  the  season  after  sunset,  and 
the  numerous  dead  deposited  before  his  eyes, 
afforded  room  to  a  person  of  his  turn  for 
much  contemplation.  His  own  pensive  mood, 
and  the  gloomy  yet  pleasing  ideas  which  tlien 


LIFE   OF   GRAY.  cxvii 

arose,  are  described  by  him  in  the  poem  which 
was  styled  '  An  Elegy  written  in  a  Church- 
yard.' It  was  certainly  conceived  there,  and 
many  of  the  stanzas  probably  there  composed, 
when  the  awful  scene  was  before  his  eyes ; 
but  the  whole  took  up  much  time  before  it 
was  completed.  This  is  a  composition  of  un- 
common merit,  and  the  most  affecting  of  any 
that  the  world  perhaps  ever  experienced  ;  not 
only  the  pathos,  but  the  harmony  of  the 
verse,  and  the  beauty  and  correctness  of  the 
diction  by  which  that  pathos  is  conveyed, 
were,  I  believe,  never  surpassed.  This  en- 
ergy, and  these  pleasing  reflections,  arose 
from  the  vivid  impressions  in  the  author's 
own  breast.  This  verifies  the  observation  of 
Horace :  — 

'  Si  vis  me  flere,  dolendum  est 
Primum  ipsi  tibi.' 

"Not  only  in  this  poem,  but  also  in  that 
upon  Eton,  every  soothing  idea  originated 
from  what  the  author  saw  and  intimately  felt. 
This  was  composed,  to  the  best  of  my  leinein- 
brance,  in  the  year  1750;  and,  as  it  was  very 
much  admired,  and  a  great  number  of  cor)ies 
in  manuscript  were  dispersed  abroad,  there  was 


cxviii  LIFE   OF  GRAY. 

intimation  given  of  a  surreptitious  edition 
which  would  soon  come  out.  Upon  this,  the 
author  himself  ordered  it  to  be  printed  by  Mr. 
Dodsley.  This  was  in  the  year  1751,  as  ap- 
pears by  Mr.  Gray's  letter  to  Mr.  Walpole, 
XV.  p.  222.  Two  years  afterwards,  there 
was  a  very  handsome  edition  of  Mr.  Gray's 
poems  printed  in  folio,  Avith  designs  by  Mr.  R. 
Bentley.  We  find  the  whole  of  them  there 
arranged  according  to  the  author's  own  dispo- 
sition, and  the  '  Churchyard '  comes  the  last ; 
and  it  was  at  that  time  the  last  of  his  works. 
In  some  of  the  stanzas  towards  the  latter  end, 
he  has  given  a  description  of  the  lawn,  heath, 
beeches,  and  springs  of  water,  near  which  he, 
with  his  mother,  resided.  The  nature  of  the 
country  is  too  precisely  pointed  out  to  be  mis- 
taken. In  the  print,  prefixed  to  the  top  of 
the  '  Long  Story,'  is  a  view  of  Lady  Cobham's 
venerable  mansion,  and  Stoke  Church  hard  by, 
where  was  the  night  scene  of  the  poet's  con- 
templations. But  in  this  print  the  articles 
seem  to  be  reversed,  through  the  I'ault  of  the 
engraver. 

"  Mr.  Gray  was  in  stature  rather  below  the 
middle  size.     He  had  a  pleasing  couritciiance, 


LIFE   OF  GRAY.  cxix 

in  which,  however,  there  was  no  extraordinary- 
expression,  consequently  no  indication  of  his 
internal  powers.  The  print  which  is  prefixed 
to  his  '  Life  '  is  rather  a  caricature,  for  his 
features  were  not  so  stiff  and  prominent,  but 
more  rounded  and  delicate.  I  remember  a 
picture  of  him  by  Pond,  taken  ^\•hen  he  Avas 
very  young,  but  badly  executed.  What  be- 
came of  it,  I  know  not. 

"  These  anecdotes  of  this  celebrated  person 

I  take  the  liberty  to  send  to  you.      If  you 

should  think  proper  either  to  print  them,  or  to 

make  extracts  from  them,  you  will  be  so  good 

as  to  make  no  mention  of  my  name. 

"  I  am,  dear  Sir, 

"  Your  most  faithful  and  obedient, 

humble  servant, 

"Jacob  Bryant. 
"  December  24th,  1798." 


^ 


POEMS 
? 


ON  THE   SPRING. 


LO  !  where  the  rosy-bosom'd  Hours, 
Fair  Venus'  train,  appear, 
Disclose  the  long-expecting  flowers, 

And  wake  the  purple  year ! 
The  Attic  warbler  pours  her  throat, 
Responsive  to  the  cuckoo's  note, 

The  untaught  harmony  of  spring : 
WTiile,  whisp'ring  pleasure  as  they  fly, 
Cool  ZephjTS  through  the  clear  blue  sky 

Their  gather'd  fragrance  fling. 

Where'er  the  oak's  thick  branches  stretch 

A  broader  browner  shade, 
Where'er  the  rude  and  moss-grown  beech 

O'er-canopies  the  glade. 
Beside  some  water's  rushy  brink 
With  me  the  Muse  shall  sit,  and  think 

(At  ease  reclined  in  rustic  state) 
How  vain  the  ardor  of  the  crowd. 
How  low,  how  little  are  the  proud, 

How  indigent  the  great ! 


ON   TRE  SPRING. 

Still  is  the  toiling  hand  of  Care  ; 

The  panting  herds  repose  : 
Yet,  hark,  how  through  the  peopled  air 

The  busy  murmur  glows  ! 
The  insect-youth  are  on  the  wing, 
Eager  to  taste  the  honeyed  spring, 

And  float  amid  the  liquid  noon  : 
Some  lightly  o'er  the  current  skim, 
Some  show  their  gayly-gilded  trim 

Quick-glancing  to  the  sun. 

To  Contemplation's  sober  eye 

Such  is  the  race  of  Man  : 
And  they  that  creep,  and  they  that  fly, 

Shall  end  where  they  began. 
Alike  the  Busy  and  tlie  Gay 
But  flutter  through  life's  little  day, 

In  Fortune's  varying  colors  drest : 
Brush'd  by  the  hand  of  rough  Mischance, 
Or  chill'd  by  Age,  their  airy  dance 

They  leave,  in  dust  to  rest. 

Methinks  I  hear,  in  accents  low. 

The  sportive  kind  reply : 
Poor  moralist !  and  what  art  thou  ? 

A  solitary  fly ! 
Thy  joys  no  glittering  female  meets, 
No  hive  hast  thou  of  hoarded  sweets, 

No  painted  plumage  to  display  : 
On  hasty  wings  thy  youth  is  flown ; 
Thy  sun  is  set,  thy  spring  is  gone  — 

We  frolic  while  't  is  May. 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  FAVORITE  CAT.      5 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  FAVORITE  CAT, 

DROWNED   IN  A   TUB   OF   GOLD-FISHES. 

"HP  WAS  on  a  lofty  vase's  side, 
-L    Where  China's  gayest  art  had  dyed 
The  azure  flowers,  that  blow ; 

Demurest  of  the  tabby  kind, 

The  pensive  Selima,  reclined, 
Gazed  on  the  lake  below. 

Her  conscious  tail  her  joy  declared ; 
The  fair  round  face,  the  snowy  beard, 

•The  velvet  of  her  paws. 
Her  coat,  that  with  the  tortoise  vies. 
Her  ears  of  jet,  and  emerald  eyes, 

She  saw ;  and  purr'd  applause. 

Still  had  she  gazed ;  but  'midst  the  tide 
Two  angel  forms  were  seen  to  glide. 

The  Genii  of  the  stream : 
Their  scaly  armor's  Tyrian  hue 
Through  richest  purple  to  the  view 

Betray'd  a  golden  gleam. 

The  hapless  nymph  with  wonder  saw : 
A  whisker  first,  and  then  a  claw, 
With  many  an  ardent  wish. 


ox  TIIL  DEATH  OF  A  FAVORITE  CAT. 

She  stretcli'd,  in  vain,  to  reach  the  prize. 
Wliat  female  heart  can  gold  despise  ? 
What  Cat 's  averse  to  fish  ? 

Presumptuous  maid  !  with  looks  Intent 
Again  she  stretch'd,  again  she  bent, 

Nor  knew  the  gulf  between. 
(Malignant  Fate  sat  by,  and  smiled) 
The  slipp'ry  verge  her  feet  beguiled, 

She  tumbled  headlong  in. 

Eight  times  emerging  from  the  flood, 
She  mew'd  to  ev'ry  wat'ry  God, 

Some  speedy  aid  to  send. 
No  Dolphin  came,  no  Nereid  stirr'd : 
Nor  cruel  Tom,  nor  Susan  heard. 

A  favorite  has  no  friend  ! 

From  hence,  ye  beauties,  undeceived, 
Know,  one  false  step  is  ne'er  retrieved, 

And  be  with  caution  bold. 
Not  all  that  tempts  your  wandering  eyes 
And  heedless  hearts  is  lawful  prize, 

Nor  aU,  that  glisters,  gold. 


^ 


ETON   COLLEGE. 


ON  A  DISTANT  PROSPECT  OF  ETON  COLLEGE. 


'Avflpw/Tog,  LKavr)  Trpd^atri?  €15  to  hvtnvx'ilv. 

Menander,  Incert.  Fragm.  ver.  382.  ed.  Cler.  p.  245 


YE  distant  spires,  ye  antique  towers, 
That  crown  the  wat'ry  glade, 
Where  grateful  Science  still  adores 

Her  Henry's  holy  shade ; 
And  ye,  that  fi'om  the  stately  brow 
Of  Windsor's  heights  th'  expanse  below 

Of  grove,  of  lawn,  of  mead  survey. 
Whose  tiu'f,  whose  shade,  whose  flowers  amon^ 
Wanders  the  hoary  Thames  along 

His  silver-winding  way : 

Ah,  happy  hills !  ah,  pleasing  shade  ! 

Ah,  fields  beloved  in  vain  ! 
Where  once  my  careless  childhood  stray'd, 

A  stranger  yet  to  pain  ! 
I  feel  the  gales  that  from  ye  blow 
A  momentary  bliss  bestow. 

As  waving  fresh  their  gladsome  wing. 
My  weary  soul  they  seem  to  soothe. 
And,  redolent  of  joy  and  youth. 

To  breathe  a  second  spring. 

Say,  father  Thames,  for  thou  hast  seen 
Full  many  a  sprightly  race 


ON  A  DISTANT  PROSPECT 

Disporting  on  thy  margent  green, 

The  paths  of  pleasure  trace ; 
Who  foremost  now  dehght  to  cleave, 
With  pliant  arm,  thy  glassy  wave  ? 

The  captive  linnet  which  enthral  ? 
What  idle  progeny  succeed 
To  chase  the  rolling  circle's  speed, 

Or  urge  the  flying  ball  ? 

While  some  on  earnest  business  bent 

Their  murm'ring  laboi-s  ply 
'Gainst  graver  hours  that  bring  constraint 

To  sweeten  liberty : 
Some  bold  adventurers  disdain 
The  limits  of  their  little  reign, 

And  unknown  regions  dare  descry : 
Still  as  they  run  they  look  behind, 
They  hear  a  voice  in  every  wind, 

And  snatch  a  fearful  joy. 

Gay  hope  is  theirs  by  fancy  fed. 

Less  pleasing  when  possest ; 
The  tear  forgot  as  soon  as  shed. 

The  sunshine  of  the  breast : 
Theirs  buxom  health,  of  rosy  hue, 
AVild  wit,  invention  ever  new. 

And  lively  cheer,  of  vigor  born ; 
The  thoughtless  day,  the  easy  night. 
The  spirits  pure,  the  slumbers  light. 

That  fly  th'  approach  of  morn. 

Alas  !  regardless  of  their  doom, 
The  little  victims  play ; 


OF  ETOX   COLLEGE. 

No  sense  have  they  of  ills  to  come, 

Nor  care  beyond  to-day  : 
Yet  see,  how  all  around  'em  wait 
The  ministers  of  human  fate, 

And  black  Misfortune's  baleful  train  ! 
Ah,  show  them  where  in  ambush  stand, 
To  seize  their  prey,  the  murth'rous  band  ! 

All,  tell  them,  they  are  men ! 

These  shall  the  fury  Passions  tear, 

The  vultures  of  the  mind, 
Disdainful  Anger,  palHd  Fear, 

And  Shame  that  skulks  behind  ; 
Or  pining  Love  shall  waste  their  youth, 
Or  Jealousy,  with  rankhng  tooth, 

That  inly  gnaws  the  secret  heart ; 
And  Envy  wan,  and  faded  Care, 
Grim-visaged  comfortless  Despair, 

And  Sorrow's  piercing  dart. 

Ambition  this  shall  tempt  to  rise. 

Then  whirl  the  wretch  from  high, 
To  bitter  Scorn  a  sacrifice, 

And  grinning  Infamy. 
The  stings  of  Falsehood  those  shall  try, 
And  hard  Unkindness'  alter'd  eye. 

That  mocks  the  tear  it  forced  to  flow : 
And  keen  Remoi-se  with  blood  defiled, 
And  moody  Madness  laughing  wild 

Amid  severest  woe. 

Lo  !  in  the  vale  of  years  beneath 
A  grisly  troop  are  seen. 


10  ETON   COLLEGE. 

The  painful  family  of  Death, 

More  hideous  than  their  queen  : 
This  racks  the  joints,  this  fires  the  veins, 
That  every  laboring  sinew  strains. 
Those  in  the  deeper  vitals  rage : 
Lo !  Poverty,  to  fill  the  band. 
That  numbs  the  soul  with  icy  hand, 
And  slow-consuming  Age. 

To  each  his  sufF 'rings :  all  are  men, 

Condemn'd  alike  to  groan ; 
The  tender  for  another's  pain, 

Th'  unfeeling  for  his  own. 
Yet,  ah  !  why  should  they  know  their  fate. 
Since  sorrow  never  comes  too  late. 

And  happiness  too  swiftly  flies  ? 
Thought  would  destroy  their  paradise. 
No  more ;  —  where  ignorance  is  bliss, 

'T  is  folly  to  be  wise. 


HYMN  TO  ADVERSITY.  H 


HYMN  TO   ADVERSITY. 

—  Zrfva  — 


Thv  ^povelv  BpoToiis  65a»- 
(Tavra,  toJ  ndOei.  iJcaOuiv 
@evTa  Kvpiois  ixeiv. 

^sch.  Agam.  ver.  18L 

DAUGHTER  of  Jove,  relentless  power, 
Thou  tamer  of  the  human  breast, 
Whose  iron  scourge  and  tort'ring  hour 

The  bad  affright,  afflict  the  best ! 
Bound  in  thy  adamantine  chain. 
The  proud  are  taught  to  taste  of  pain, 
And  purple  t}Tants  vainly  groan 
With  pangs  unfelt  before,  unpitied  and  alone. 

When  first  thy  sire  to  send  on  earth 
Virtue,  his  darling  child,  design'd, 
To  thee  he  gave  the  heav'nly  birth. 

And  bade  to  form  her  infant  mind. 
Stern  rugged  nurse !  thy  rigid  lore 
With  patience  many  a  year  she  bore : 
What  sorrow  was,  thou  bad'st  her  know, 
And  from  her  own  she  learn'd  to  melt  at  others'  woe. 

Scared  at  thy  frown  terrific,  fly 

Self-pleasing  Folly's  idle  brood. 
Wild  Laughter,  Noise,  and  thoughtless  Joy, 

And  leave  us  leisure  to  be  good. 


12  HYMN   TO  ADVERSITY. 

Light  they  disperse,  and  with  them  go 
The  summer  friend,  the  flatt'ring  foe ; 
By  vain  Prosperity  received, 
To  her  they  vow  their  truth,  and  are  again  believed. 

Wisdom  in  sable  garb  array'd, 

Immersed  in  rapt'rous  thought  profound, 
And  Melancholy,  silent  maid, 

AVith  leaden  eye  that  loves  the  ground, 
Still  on  thy  solemn  steps  attend  : 
Warm  Charity,  the  gen'ral  friend. 
With  Justice,  to  herself  severe. 
And  Pity,  dropping  soft  the  sadly-pleasing  tear. 

O,  gently  on  thy  suppliant's  head, 

Dread  goddess,  lay  thy  chast'ning  hand ! 
Not  in  thy  Gorgon  terroi-s  clad. 

Not  circled  with  the  vengeful  band 
(As  by  the  impious  thou  art  seen) 
With  thund'ring  voice,  and  threat'ning  mien, 
With  screaming  Horror's  fun'ral  cry, 
Despair,  and  fell  Disease,  and  ghastly  Poverty : 

Thy  form  benign,  O  goddess,  wear. 

Thy  milder  influence  impeu-t, 
Thy  philosophic  train  be  there 

To  soften,  not  to  wound,  my  heart. 
The  gen'rous  spark  extinct  revive, 
Teach  me  to  love  and  to  forgive, 
Exact  my  OAvn  defects  to  scan, 
What  others  are  to  feel  and  know  myself  a  Man. 


THE  PROGRESS   OF  POESY,  13 


THE  PROGHESS   OF  POESY. 

A  PINDARIC  ODE.* 


^oiva-vTa  cruverolcnv  •  es 
Ae  TO  jrai/  ep/XTjvewi/ 
Xari^ei. 

Pindar.  01.  U. 


I.  1. 

AWAKE,  ^olian  lyre,  awake, 
And  give  to  rapture  all  thy  trembling  strings. 
From  Helicon's  harmonious  springs 

A  thousand  rills  their  mazy  progress  take : 
The  laughing  flowers,  that  round  them  blow. 
Drink  life  and  fragrance  as  they  flow. 
Now  the  rich  stream  of  music  winds  alonsr, 
Deep,  majestic,  smooth,  and  strong, 
Thro'  verdant  vales,  and  Ceres'  golden  reign. 
Now  rolling  down  the  steep  amain, 
Headlong,  impetuous,  see  it  pour  ; 
The  rocks  and  nodding  groves  rebeUow  to  the  roar. 

I.  2. 

O  Sov'reign  of  the  willing  soul. 
Parent  of  sweet  and  solemn-breathing  airs, 
Enchanting  shell !  the  sullen  Cares 

And  frantic  Passions  hear  thy  soft  control. 

*  Finished  in  1754.    Printed  together  with  "  The  Bard,  an  Ode," 
August  8, 1757.    MS. 


14  THE  PROGRESS    OF  POESY. 

On  Thracia's  hills  the  Lord  of  War 

Has  curb'd  the  fury  of  his  car, 

And  dropt  his  thirsty  lance  at  thy  command. 

Perching  on  the  sceptred  hand 

Of  Jove,  thy  magic  lulls  the  feathcr'd  king 

With  ruffled  plumes  and  flagging  wing : 

Quench'd  in  dark  clouds  of  slumber  lie 

The  terroi-s  of  his  beak,  and  lightnings  of  his  eye. 


Thee  the  voice,  the  dance,  obey, 

Temper'd  to  thy  warbled  lay. 

O'er  Idalia's  velvet-green 

The  rosy-crowned  Loves  are  seen 

On  Cytherea's  day ; 

With  antic  Sport,  and  blue-eyed  Pleasm'es, 

Frisking  light  in  frolic  measures  ; 

Now  pursuing,  now  retreating. 

Now  in  circling  troops  they  meet : 
To  brisk  notes  in  cadence  beating. 

Glance  their  many-twinkling  feet. 
Slow  melting  strains  their  Queen's  approach  de- 
clare : 

Where'er  she  turns,  the  Graces  homage  pay. 
With  arms  sublime,  that  float  upon  the  air, 

In  gliding  state  she  w^ns  her  e:isy  way  : 
O'er  her  warm  cheek,  and  rising  bosom,  move 
The  bloom  of  young  Desire  and  purple  light  of 
Love. 

II.  1. 

Man's  feeble  race  what  ills  await ! 
Labor,  and  Penury,  the  racks  of  Pain, 


THE  PROGRESS   OF  POESY.  15 

Disease,  and  Sorrow's  weeping  train, 

And  Death,  sad  refuge  from  the  storms  of  fate ! 
The  fond  complaint,  my  song,  disprove, 
And  justify  the  laws  of  Jove. 
Say,  has  he  giv'n  in  vain  the  heav'nly  Muse  ? 
Night  and  all  her  sickly  dews, 
Her  spectres  wan,  and  birds  of  boding  cry, 
He  gives  to  range  the  dreary  sky  ; 
Till  down  the  eastern  cliffs  afar 
Hyperion's  march  they  spy,  and  glitt'ring  shafts  of 
war. 

II.  2. 

In  climes  beyond  the  solar  road, 
Where  shaggy  forms  o'er  ice-built  mountains  roam. 
The  Muse  has  broke  the  tAvilight  gloom 

To  cheer  the  shivering  native's  dull  abode. 
And  ofl,  beneath  the  od'rous  shade 
Of  Chili's  boundless  forests  laid, 
She  deigns  to  hear  the  savage  j'outli  repeat, 
In  loose  numbei-s  wildly  sweet. 
Their  feather-cinctured  chiefs,  and  dusky  loves. 
Her  track,  where'er  the  goddess  roves, 
Glory  pursue,  and  gen'rous  Shame, 
Th'  unconquerable  Mind,  and  freedom's  holy  llame. 

II.  3. 

Woods,  that  wave  o'er  Delphi's  steep, 
Isles,  that  crown  th'  iEgean  deep. 

Fields,  that  cool  Hissus  laves, 

Or  where  Meeander's  amber  waves 
In  lingering  lab'rinths  creep. 

How  do  your  tuneful  echoes  languish. 

Mute,  but  to  the  voice  of  annuish  ! 


IG  rJIE  PJWGJiLSS    OF  PO.jiir. 

Where  each  old  poetic  mountain 

Inspiration  breathed  around ; 
Ev'ry  shade  and  hallow'd  fountain 

Murmur'd  deep  a  solemn  sound : 
Till  the  sad  Nine,  in  Greece's  evil  hour, 

Left  their  Parnassus  for  the  Latian  plains. 
Alike  they  scorn  the  pomp  of  tyrant  Po^ver, 

And  coward  Vice,  that  revels  in  her  chains. 
When  Latium  had  her  lofty  spirit  lost, 
They  sought,   O  Albion !  next  thy  sea-encircled 
coast. 

III.  1. 

Far  from  the  sun  and  summer-gale, 
In  thy  green  lap  was  Nature's  darling  laid, 
What  time,  where  lucid  Avon  stray'd. 

To  him  the  mighty  mother  did  unveil 
Her  awful  face  :  the  dauntless  child 
Stretch'd  forth  his  little  arms  and  smiled. 
"  This  pencil  take  (she  said),  whose  colors  clear 
Richly  paint  the  vernal  year : 
Thine  too  these  golden  keys,  immortal  Boy ! 
This  can  unlock  the  gates  of  joy ; 
Of  horror  that,  and  thrilling  fears, 
Or  ope  the  sacred  source  of  sympathetic  tears.'' 

III.  2. 

Nor  second  He,  that  rode  sublime 
Upon  the  seraph-wings  of  Ecstasy, 
The  secrets  of  tli'  abyss  to  spy. 

He  pass'd  the  flaming  bounds  of  place  and  time  : 
The  living  throne,  the  sapphire  blaze, 
Where  angels  tremble  while  they  gaze, 


THE  PROGMESS   OF  POESY.  \1 

He  saw ;  but,  blasted  with  excess  of  light, 
Closed  his  eyes  in  endless  night. 
Beliold,  where  Dryden's  less  presumiDtuous  car 
Wide  o'er  the  fields  of  glory  bear 
Two  coursers  of  ethereal  race, 
With  necks  in  thunder  clothed,  and  long-resound- 
ing pace. 

m.  3. 

Hark,  his  hands  the  lyre  explore  ! 
Bright-eyed  Fancy,  hov'ring  o'er. 
Scatters  from  her  pictured  urn 
Thoughts  that  breathe,  and  words  that  burn. 
But  ah !  't  is  heard  no  more 

O  lyre  divine  !  what  daring  spirit 

Wakes  thee  now  ?     Though  he  inherit 
Nor  the  pride,  nor  ample  pinion, 

That  the  Theban  eagle  bear. 
Sailing  with  supreme  dominion 

Through  the  azure  deep  of  air  : 
Yet  oft  before  his  infant  eyes  would  run 

Such  forms  as  glitter  in  the  Muse's  ray, 
With  orient  hues,  unborrow'd  of  the  sun : 

Yet  shall  he  mount,  and  keep  his  distant  way 
Beyond  the  limits  of  a  vulgar  fate, 
Beneath  the  Good  how  far,  —  but  far  above  the 
Great. 


38  THE  BARD, 


THE    BARD. 


A  PINDARIC  ODE. 


I.    1. 

"  T3  UIN  seize  thee,  ruthless  King  ! 

J- V  Confusion  on  thy  bannei-s  wait ; 
Tliough  fann'd  by  Conquest's  cirmson  wing, 

They  mock  the  air  with  idle  state. 
Helm,  nor  hauberk's  twisted  mail, 
Nor  e'en  thy  virtues,  Tyrant,  shall  avail 

To  save  thy  secret  soul  from  nightly  fears. 

From  Cambria's  curse,  from  Cambria's  tears  ! " 
Such  were  the  sounds  that  o'er  the  crested  pride 

Of  the  first  Edward  scatter'd  wild  dismay, 
As  down  the  steep  of  Snowdon's  shaggy  side 

He  wound  with  toilsome  march  his  long  array. 
Stout  Glo'ster  stood  aghast  in  speechless  trance : 
"  To   arms ! "   cried   Mortimer,    and    couch'd    his 
quiv'ring  lance. 

I.  2. 

On  a  rock  whose  haughty  brow. 
Frowns  o'er  cold  Conway's  foaming  flood, 

Robed  in  the  sable  garb  of  woe. 
With  haggard  eyes  the  poet  stood ; 
(Loose  his  beard,  and  hoary  hair 
Stream'd,  hke  a  meteor,  to  the  troubled  air) 


THE  BARD.  19 

And  with  a  master's  hand,  and  prophet's  fire, 
Struck  the  deep  sorrows  of  his  lyre. 

"  Hark,  how  each  giant-oak,  and  desert  <  \ve, 
Sighs  to  the  torrent's  awful  voice  beneath ! 
O'er   thee,    O    King !    their   hundred   arms   they 
wave. 

Revenge  on  thee  in  hoarser  murmurs  breathe ; 
Vocal  no  more,  since  Cambria's  fatal  day, 
To  high-born  Hoel's  harp,  or  soft  Llewellyn's  lay. 

I.  3. 

"  Cold  is  Cadwallo's  tongue, 

That  hush'd  the  stormy  main  : 
Brave  Urien  sleeps  upon  his  craggy  bed  : 

Mountains,  ye  mourn  in  vain 

Modred,  whose  magic  song 
Made  huge  Plinlimmon  bow  his  cloud-topt  head. 

On  dreary  Arvon's  shore  they  lie, 
Smear'd  with  gore,  and  ghastly  pale  : 
Far,  far  aloof  th'  affrighted  ravens  sail ; 

The  famish'd  eagle  screams,  and  passes  by. 
Dear  lost  companions  of  my  tuneful  art. 

Dear  as  the  light  that  visits  these  sad  eyes, 
Dear  as  the  ruddy  drops  that  warm  my  heart, 

Ye  died  amidst  your  dying  country's  cries  — 
No  more  I  weep.     They  do  not  sleep. 

On  yonder  cliffs,  a  gi'isly  band, 
I  see  them  sit,  they  linger  yet, 

Avengers  of  their  native  land  : 
With  me  in  dreadful  hannony  they  join, 
And  weave  with  bloody  hands  the  tissue  of  thy  lina 


20  THE  BARD. 

11.  1. 

"  Weave  the  wai'p,  and  weave  the  woof, 
The  winding-sheet  of  Edward's  race. 

Give  ample  room,  and  verge  enough 
The  characters  of  hell  to  trace. 
Mark  the  year,  and  mark  the  night. 
When  Severn  shall  re-echo  with  affright 
The  shrieks  of  death,  through  Berkley's  roof  that 

ring, 
Slirieks  of  an  agonizing  king  ! 

She-wolf  of  France,  with  unrelenting  fangs. 
That  tear'st  the  bowels  of  thy  mangled  mate, 

From  thee  be  born,  who  o'er  thy  country  hangs 
The  scourge  of  heav'n.     What  terrors  round  him 

wait ! 
Amazement  in  his  van,  with  flight  combined. 
And  sorrow's  faded  form,  and  solitude  behind. 

II.  2. 

"  Mighty  victor,  mighty  lord  ! 
Low  on  his  funeral  couch  he  lies ! 

No  pitjdng  heart,  no  eye,  afford 
A  tear  to  grace  his  obsequies. 

Is  the  sable  warrior  fled  ? 
Thy  son  is  gone.     He  rests  among  the  dead. 
The  swarm,  that  in  thy  noontide  beam  were  born  ? 
Gone  to  salute  the  rising  morn. 
Fair  laughs  the  morn,  and  soft  the  zephyr  blows. 

While  proudly  riding  o'er  the  azure  realm 
In  gallant  trim  the  gilded  vessel  goes ; 

Youth  on  the  prow,  and  Pleasure  at  the  helm  ^ 
Regardless  of  the  sweeping  whirlwind's  sway. 
That,  hush'd  in  grim  repose,  expects  his  ev'ning 
prey. 


THE  BARD. 


21 


II.  3. 
"  Fill  high  the  sparkling  bowl, 
Tlie  rich  repast  prepare  ; 

Reft  of  a  crown,  he  yet  may  share  the  feast: 
Close  by  the  regal  chair 
Fell  Thirst  and  Famine  scowl 
A  baleful  smile  upon  their  baffled  guest. 
Heard  ye  the  din  of  battle  bray, 
Lance  to  lance,  and  horse  to  horse  ? 
Long  years  of  havoc  urge  their  destined  coui-se, 
And  thro'  the  kindred  squadrons  mow  their  way. 

Ye  towers  of  Julius,  London's  lasting  shame, 
With  many  a  foul  and  midnight  murder  fed, 
Revere  his  consort's  faith,  liis  father's  fame, 
And  spare  the  meek  usurper's  holy  head. 
Above,  below,  the  rose  of  snow, 

Twined  with  her  blushing  foe,  we  spread : 
The  bristled  boar  in  infant-gore 

Wallows  beneath  the  thorny  shade. 
Now,  brothers,  bending  o'er  the  accursed  loom, 
Stamp  we  our  vengeance  deep,  and  ratify  his  doom. 

III.  1. 

"  Edward,  lo !  to  sudden  fate 
(Weave  we  the  woof     The  thread  is  spun.) 

Half  of  thy  heart  we  consecrate. 
(The  web  is  wove.     The  work  is  done.) 
Stay,  O  stay  !  nor  thus  forlorn 
Leave  me  unbless'd,  unpitled,  here  to  mourn  : 
In  yon  bright  track,  that  fires  the  western  skies, 
TJiey  melt,  they  vanish  from  my  eyes. 
But  oh  !  what  solemn  scenes  on  Snowdon's  height 

Descending  slow  their  glittering  skirts  unroll  ? 


22  THE  BARD. 

Visions  of  glory,  spare  my  aching  sight ! 

Ye  unborn  ages,  crowd  not  on  my  soul ! 
No  more  our  long-lost  Arthur  we  bewail. 
All  hail,  ye  genuine  kings,  Britannia's  issue,  hail! 

III.  2. 

"  Girt  with  many  a  baron  bold 
Sublime  their  starry  fronts  they  rear ; 

And  gorgeous  dames,  and  statesmen  old 
In  bearded  majesty,  appear. 
In  the  midst  a  form  divine  ! 
Her  eye  proclaims  her  of  the  Briton-line  ; 
Her  lion -port,  her  awe-commanding  face, 
Attemper'd  sweet  to  virgin-grace. 
What  strings  symphonious  tremble  in  the  air, 

What  strains  of  vocal  transport  round  her  play  ! 
Hear  from  the  grave,  great  Taliessin,  hear ; 

They  breathe  a  soul  to  animate  thy  clay. 
Bright  Rapture  calls,  and  soaring  as  she  sings, 
Waves  in  the   eye   of  heav'n  her  many-color'd 
wings. 

m.  3. 

"  The  verse  adorn  again 

Fierce  war,  and  faithful  love. 
And  truth  severe,  by  fairy  fiction  drest. 

In  buskin'd  measures  move 
Pale  grief,  and  pleasing  pain. 
With  horror,  tyrant  of  the  throbbing  breast. 

A  voice,  as  of  the  cherub-choir. 
Gales  from  blooming  Eden  bear ; 
And  distant  warblings  lessen  on  my  ear, 

That  lost  in  long  futurity  expire. 


THE  BARD.  23 

Fond   impious   man,  think'st  thou  yon  sanguine 
cloud, 
Raised  by  thy  breath,  has  quench'd  the  orb  of 
day? 
To-morrow  he  repairs  the  golden  flood, 

And  warms  the  nations  with  redoubled  ray. 
Enough  for  me  ;  with  joy  I  see 

The  diff 'rent  doom  oiu*  fates  assign. 
Be  thine  despair,  and  sceptred  care  ; 
To  triumph,  and  to  die,  are  mine." 
He    spoke,   and    headlong    from    the   mountain's 

height 
Deep  in  the  roaring  tide  he  plunged  to  endless 
night. 


24  ODE  FOR  MUSIC. 


ODE  FOR  MUSIC. 

(irregular.) 


"  TJ  ENCE,  avaunt,  ('t  is  holy  ground,) 
XJ-    Comus,  and  his  midnight-crew, 

And  Ignorance  with  looks  profound, 
And  dreaming  Sloth  of  pallid  hue, 

Mad  Sedition's  cry  profane. 

Servitude  that  hugs  her  chain. 

Nor  in  these  consecrated  bowers 

Let  painted   Flatt'ry   hide   her   serpent-train  in 
flowers. 

CHORUS. 

"  Nor  Envy  base,  nor  creeping  Gain, 
Dare  the  Muse's  walk  to  stain. 
While  bright-eyed  Science  watches  round  • 
Hence,  away,  't  is  holy  ground  ! " 

II.   RECITATIVE. 

From  yonder  realms  of  emp}Tean  day 

Bursts  on  my  ear  th'  indignant  lay : 
There  sit  the  sainted  sage,  the  bard  divine, 

The  few,  whom  genius  gave  to  shine 
Thro'  every  unborn  age,  and  undiscover'd  clime. 

Rapt  in  celestial  transport  they  : 


ODE  FOR  MUSIC.  25 

Yet  hither  oft  a  glance  from  high 

They  send  of  tender  sympathy 
To  bless  the  place,  where  on  their  opening  soul 

First  the  genuine  ardor  stole. 
'T  was  Milton  struck  the  deep-toned  shell, 
And,  as  the  choral  warblings  round  him  swell, 
Meek  Newton's  self  bends  from  his  state  sublime, 
And  nods  his  hoary  head,  and  listens  to  the  rhyme. 


"  Ye  brown  o'er-arching  groves, 
That  Contemplation  loves, 
Where  willowy  Camus  lingers  with  delight ! 
Oft  at  the  blush  of  dawn 
I  trod  your  level  lawn. 
Oft  woo'd  the  gleam  of  Cynthia  silver-bright 
In  cloisters  dim,  far  from  the  haunts  of  Folly, 
With  Freedom  by  my  side,  and  soft-eyed  Melan- 
choly." 

IV.      RECITATIVE. 

But  hark  !  the  portals  sound,  and  pacing  forth 

With  solemn  steps  and  slow. 
High  potentates,  and  dames  of  royal  birth, 
And  mitred  fathers  in  long  order  go  : 
Great  Edward,  with  the  lilies  on  his  brow 

From  haughty  Gallia  torn, 
And  sad  Chatillon,  on  her  bridal  morn 
That  wept  her  bleeding  Love,  and  princely'  Clare, 
And  Anjou's  heroine,  and  the  paler  rose. 
The  rival  of  her  crown  and  of  her  woes. 

And  either  Henry  there. 
The  murdcr'd  saint,  and  the  majestic  lord, 


26  ODE  FOR  MUSIC 

That  broke  the  bonds  of  Rome. 
(Their  tears,  then-  little  triumphs  o'er, 
Their  human  passions  now  no  more, 
Save  Charity,  that  glows  bejond  the  tomb.) 

acco:mpanied. 

All  that  on  Granta's  fruitful  plain 
Rich  streams  of  regal  bounty  pour'd, 
And  bade  these  awful  fanes  and  turrets  rise, 
To  hail  their  Fitzroy's  festal  morning  come; 
And  thus  they  speak  in  sofl  accord 
The  liquid  language  of  the  skies  : 

V.  QUARTETTO. 

"  TVTiat  is  grandeur,  what  is  power  ? 
Heavier  toil,  superior  pain. 
What  the  bright  reward  we  gain  ? 
The  grateful  memory  of  the  good. 
Sweet  is  the  breath  of  vernal  shower, 
The  bee's  collected  treasures  sweet, 
Sweet  music's  melting  fall,  but  sweeter  yet 
The  still  small  voice  of  gratitude." 

VI.  RECITATIVE. 

Foremost  and  leaning  from  her  golden  cloud 

The  venerable  Marg'ret  see ! 
"Welcome,  my  noble  son  (she  cries  aloud), 

To  this,  thy  kindred  train,  and  me  : 
Pleased  in  thy  lineaments  we  trace 
A  Tudor's  fire,  a  Beaufort's  grace. 


ODE  FOR  MUSIC.  27 

AIR. 

"  Thy  liberal  heart,  thy  judging  eye, 
The  flow'r  unheeded  shall  descry, 
And  bid  it  round  heav'n's  altars  shed 
The  fragrance  of  its  blushing  head ; 
Shall  raise  from  earth  the  latent  gem 
To  glitter  on  the  diadem. 

VII.     RECITATIVE. 

"  Lo !  Granta  waits  to  lead  her  blooming  band, 

Not  obvious,  nor  obtrusive,  she 
No  vulgar  praise,  no  venal  incense  flings ; 

Nor  dares  with  courtly  tongue  refined 
Profane  thy  inborn  royalty  of  mind : 

She  reveres  herself  and  thee. 
With  modest  pride  to  gi'ace  thy  youthful  brow. 
The  laiu-eate  wreath,  that  Cecil  wore,  she  brings, 

And  to  thy  just,  thy  gentle  hand, 

Submits  the  fasces  of  her  sway, 
Wliilc  spirits  blest  above  and  men  below 
Join  with  glad  voice  the  loud  symphonious  lay. 

VIII.      GRAND   CHORUS. 

"  Through  the  wild  waves  as  they  roar, 
AVith  watchfid  eye  and  dauntless  mien, 
Thy  steady  course  of  honor  keep, 
Nor  fear  the  rocks,  nor  seek  the  shore : 
The  star  of  Brunswick  smiles  serene, 
And  gilds  the  horrors  of  the  deep." 


28  THE  FATAL  SISTERS. 


THE   FATAL   SISTERS. 

AN  ODE.   FKOM  THE  NORSE  TONGUE. 

NOW  the  storm  begins  to  lower, 
(Haste,  the  loom  of  hell  prepare,) 
Iron  sleet  of  arrowy  shower 
Hui'tles  in  the  darken'd  air. 

Glitt'ring  lances  are  the  loom, 
Where  the  dusky  warp  we  strain, 

Weaving  many  a  soldier's  doom 
Orkney's  woe,  and  Randver's  bane. 

See  the  grisly  texture  grow  I 
('T  is  of  human  entrails  made) 

And  the  weights,  that  play  below, 
Each  a  gasping  warrior's  head. 

Shafts  for  shuttles,  dipt  in  gore, 
Shoot  the  trembling  cords  along. 

Swords,  that  once  a  monarch  bore, 
Keep  the  tissue  close  and  strong. 

jMista,  black  terrific  maid, 

Sangrida,  and  Hilda,  see, 
Join  the  wayward  work  to  aid : 

'T  is  the  woof  of  victory. 


THE  FATAL  SISTERS.  29 

Ere  the  ruddy  sun  be  set, 

Pikes  must  shiver,  javelins  sing, 
Blade  with  clattering  buckler  meet, 

Hauberk  crash,  and  helmet  ring. 

(Weave  the  crimson  web  of  war) 

Let  us  go,  and  let  us  fly. 
Where  our  friends  the  conflict  share. 

Where  they  triumph,  where  they  die. 

As  the  paths  of  fate  we  tread, 

Wading  through  th'  ensanguined  field, 

Gondula  and  Geira,  spread 

O'er  the  youthful  king  your  shield. 

We  the  reins  to  slaughter  give, 

Ours  to  kill,  and  ours  to  spare  : 
Spite  of  danger  he  shall  live. 

(Weave  the  crimson  web  of  war.) 

They,  whom  once  the  desert-beach 

Pent  within  its  bleak  domain, 
Soon  their  ample  sway  shall  stretch 

O'er  the  plenty  of  the  plain. 

Low  the  dauntless  earl  is  laid, 

Gored  with  many  a  gaping  wound : 

Fate  demands  a  nobler  head ; 

Soon  a  king  shall  bite  the  ground. 

Long  his  loss  shall  Eirin  weep. 

Ne'er  again  his  likeness  see ; 
Long  her  strains  in  sorrow  steep  : 

Strains  of  immortalitv! 


30  THE  FATAL  SISTERS. 

Horror  covers  all  the  heath, 
Clouds  of  carnage  blot  the  sun. 

Sisters,  weave  the  web  of  death  ; 
Sisters,  cease ;  the  work  is  done. 

Hail  the  task,  and  hail  the  hands  ! 

Songs  of  joy  and  triumph  sing  ! 
Joy  to  the  victorious  bands ; 

Triumph  to  the  younger  king. 

Mortal,  thou  that  hear'st  the  tale, 
Learn  the  tenor  of  our  song. 

Scotland,  through  each  winding  vale 
Far  and  wide  the  notes  prolong. 

Sisters,  hence  with  spurs  of  speed : 
Each  her  thundering  falchion  wield  j 

Each  bestride  her  sable  steed. 
Hurry,  hurry  to  the  field ! 


THE  DESCENT   OF   ODIN.  31 


THE  DESCENT   OF  ODIN. 

AN  ODE.   FROM  THE  NORSE  TONGUE. 

UPROSE  the  king  of  men  with  speed, 
And  saddled  straight  his  coal-blaek  steed  5 
Down  the  yawning  steep  he  rode, 
That  leads  to  Hela's  drear  abode. 
Him  the  dog  of  darkness  spied  ; 
His  shaggy  throat  he  open'd  wide, 
(^Vhile  from  his  jaws,  with  carnage  fiU'd, 
Foam  and  human  gore  distill'd  :) 
Hoarse  be  bays  with  hideous  din. 
Eyes  that  glow,  and  fangs  that  grin ; 
And  long  pursues,  with  fruitless  yell, 
The  father  of  the  powerful  spell. 
Onward  still  his  way  he  takes, 
(The  groaning  earth  beneath  him  shakes,) 
Till  full  before  his  fearless  eyes 
The  portals  nine  of  hell  arise. 

Right  against  the  eastern  gate, 
By  the  moss-grown  pile  he  sate ; 
AVhere  long  of  yore  to  sleep  was  laid 
The  dust  of  the  prophetic  maid. 
Facing  to  the  northern  clime. 
Thrice  he  traced  the  Runic  rhyme ; 
Thrice  pronounced,  in  accents  dread, 
The  thrilling  verse  that  wakes  the  dead : 


32  THE  DESCENT   OF   ODIN. 

Till  from  out  the  hollow  ground 
Slowly  breathed  a  sullen  sound. 

PROPHETESS. 

What  call  unknown,  what  charnis  presume 
To  break  the  quiet  of  the  tomb  ? 
Who  thus  afflicts  my  troubled  sprite, 
And  drags  me  from  the  realms  of  night  ? 
Long  on  these  mould'ring  bones  have  beat 
The  winter's  snow,  the  summer's  heat. 
The  drenching  dews,  and  driving  rain  ! 
Let  me,  let  me  sleep  again. 
Who  is  he,  with  voice  unblest, 
That  calls  me  from  the  bed  of  rest  ? 


A  traveller,  to  thee  unknown, 
Is  he  that  calls,  a  warrior's  son. 
Thou  the  deeds  of  light  shalt  know  ; 
Tell  me  what  is  done  below, 
For  whom  yon  glitt'ring  board  is  spread, 
Dress'd  for  whom  yon  golden  bed  ? 

PROPHETESS. 

Mantling  in  the  goblet  see 
The  pure  bev'rage  of  the  bee  : 
O'er  it  hangs  the  shield  of  gold ; 
'T  is  the  drink  of  Balder  bold : 
Balder's  head  to  death  is  giv'n. 
Pain  can  reach  the  sons  of  beav'n  ! 
LTn willing  I  my  lips  unclose  : 
Leave  me,  leave  me  to  repose. 


THE  DESCENT   OF   ODIN.  33 

ODIN. 

Once  again  my  call  obey : 
Prophetess,  arise,  and  say, 
"What  dangers  Odin's  child  await, 
Who  the  author  of  his  fate  V 

PROPHETESS. 

In  Hoder's  hand  the  hero's  doom ; 
His  brother  sends  him  to  the  tomb. 
Now  my  weary  lips  I  close  : 
Leave  me,  leave  me  to  repose. 


Prophetess,  my  spell  obey : 
Once  again  arise,  and  say, 
Who  th'  avenger  of  his  guilt. 
By  whom  shall  Hoder's  blood  be  spilt  ? 

PROPHETESS. 

In  the  caverns  of  the  west, 
By  Odin's  fierce  embrace  comprest, 
A  wondrous  boy  shall  Rinda  bear. 
Who  ne'er  shall  comb  his  raven  hair, 
Nor  wash  his  visage  in  the  stream. 
Nor  see  the  sun's  departing  beam. 
Till  he  on  Hoder's  corse  shall  smile 
Flaming  on  the  fun'ral  pile. 
Now  my  weary  lips  I  close : 
Leave  me,  leave  me  to  repose. 


Yet  awhile  my  call  obey : 
Prophetess,  awake,  and  say, 
3 


34  THE  DESCENT  OF   ODIN. 

What  virgins  these,  in  speechless  woe, 
That  bend  to  earth  their  solemn  brow, 
That  their  flaxen  tresses  tear, 
And  snowy  veils  that  float  in  air  ? 
Tell  me  whence  their  sorrows  rose : 
Then  I  leave  thee  to  repose. 

PROPHETESS.       ' 

Ha !  no  traveller  art  thou. 
King  of  men,  I  know  thee  now ; 
Mightiest  of  a  mighty  line 

ODIN. 

No  boding  maid  of  skill  divine 
Art  thou,  nor  prophetess  of  good ; 
But  mother  of  the  giant  brood  ! 

PROPHETESS. 

Hie  thee  hence,  and  boast  at  home, 
That  never  shall  inquirer  come 
To  break  my  iron-sleep  again ; 
Till  Lok  has  burst  his  tenfold  chain  ; 
Never,  till  substantial  Night 
Has  reassumed  her  ancient  right ; 
Till  wrapt  in  flames,  in  ruin  hurl'd, 
Sinks  the  fabric  of  the  world. 


THE   TRIUMPHS   OF  OWEN.  35 


THE    TRIUMPHS    OF    OWEN. 

A  FRAGME2JT.      FROM  THE  WELSH. 

OWEN'S  praise  demands  my  song, 
Owen  swift,  and  Owen  strong ; 
Fairest  flower  of  Roderic's  stem, 
Gwyneth's  shield,  and  Britain's  gem. 
He  nor  heaps  his  brooded  stores, 
Nor  on  all  profusely  pours ; 
Lord  of  every  regal  art. 
Liberal  hand,  and  open  heart. 

Big  with  hosts  of  mighty  name, 
Squadrons  three  against  him  came  ; 
This  the  force  of  Eirin  hiding. 
Side  by  side  as  proudly  riding, 
On  her  shadow  long  and  gay 
Lochlin  ploughs  the  wat'ry  way ; 
There  the  Norman  sails  afar 
Catch  the  winds  and  join  the  war : 
Black  and  huge  along  they  sweep. 
Burdens  of  the  angry  deep. 

Dauntless  on  his  native  sands 
The  dragon-son  of  Mona  stands ; 
Li  glitt'ring  arms  and  glory  drest, 
High  he  rears  his  ruby  crest. 


36  THE   TRIUMPHS   OF  OWEN. 

There  the  thund'rlng  strokes  begin, 
Tliere  the  press,  and  there  the  din  ; 
Talymalfra's  rocky  shore 
Echoing  to  the  battle's  roar. 
Check'd  by  the  torrent-tide  of  blood, 
Backward  Meinai  rolls  liis  flood  ; 
While,  heap'd  his  master's  feet  around, 
Prostrate  warriors  gnaw  the  ground. 
Where  his  glowing  eyeballs  turn. 
Thousand  banners  round  hira  burn  : 
Where  he  points  his  purple  spear, 
Hasty,  hasty  rout  is  there. 
Marking  with  indignant  eye 
Fear  to  stop,  and  shame  to  fly. 
There  confusion,  terror's  child, 
Conflict  fierce,  and  ruin  wild. 
Agony,  that  pants  for  breath, 
Despair  and  honorable  death. 


TEE  DEATH  OF  EOEL.  37 


THE   DEATH  OF  HOEL. 

AN  ODE.      SELECTED   FROM  THE   GODODIN. 

HAD  I  but  the  torrent's  might, 
With  headlong  rage  and  wild  affright 
Upon  Deira's  squadrons  hurl'd 
To  rush,  and  sweep  them  from  the  world ! 

Too,  too  secure  in  youthful  pride, 
By  them,  my  friend,  my  Hoel,  died, 
Great  Cian's  son  :  of  Madoc  old 
He  ask'd  no  heaps  of  hoarded  gold  ; 
Alone  in  nature's  wealth  array'd 
He  ask'd  and  had  the  lovely  maid. 

To  Cattraeth's  vale  in  glitt'ring  row 
Twice  two  hundred  warriors  go : 
Every  warrior's  manly  neck 
Chains  of  regal  honor  deck, 
Wreath'd  in  many  a  golden  link  : 
From  the  golden  cup  they  drink 
Nectar  that  the  bees  produce, 
Or  the  grape's  ecstatic  juice. 
Flush'd  with  mirth  and  hope  they  burn  : 
But  none  from  Cattraeth's  vale  return. 
Save  Aeron  brave,  and  Conan  strong, 
(Bursting  through  the  bloody  throng,) 


38  THE  DEATH  OF  HOEL. 

And  I,  the  meanest  of  them  all, 
That  live  to  weep  and  sing  their  fall. 


Have  ye  seen  the  tusky  boar, 
Or  the  bull,  with  sullen  roar, 
On  surrounding  foes  advance  ? 
So  Caradoc  bore  his  lance. 


Conan's  name,  my  lay,  rehearse, 
Build  to  him  the  lofty  verse, 
Sacred  tribute  of  the  bard, 
Verse,  the  hero's  sole  reward. 
As  the  flame's  devouring  force ; 
As  the  whirlwind  in  its  course  ; 
As  the  thunder's  fiery  stroke. 
Glancing  on  the  shiver'd  oak  ; 
Did  the  sword  of  Conan  mow 
The  crimson  harvest  of  the  fo«. 


^ 


SONNET.  Z^ 


SONNET 

ON  THE   DEATH  OF   MR.   RICHARD   WEST. 

IN  vain  to  me  the  smiling  mornings  shine, 
And  redd'ning  Phoebus  lifts  his  golden  fire ; 
The  birds  in  vain  their  amorous  descant  join, 

Or  cheerful  fields  resume  their  green  attire  : 
These  ears,  alas  !  for  other  notes  repine, 

A  dilferent  object  do  these  eyes  require : 
My  lonely  anguish  melts  no  heart  but  mine  ; 

And  in  my  breast  the  imperfect  joys  expire. 
Yet  morning  smiles  the  busy  race  to  cheer. 

And  new-born  pleaisure  brings  to  happier  men 
The  fields  to  all  their  wonted  tribute  bear ; 

To  warm  their  little  loves  the  birds  complain  : 
I  fruitless  mourn  to  liim  that  cannot  hear. 

And  weep  the  more,  because  I  weep  in  vain. 


^^^ 


40  EPITAPH. 


EPITAPH 

ON   MRS.   JANE   CLERKE. 

LO  I  where  this  silent  marble  weeps, 
A  friend,  a  wife,  a  mother  sleeps  : 
A  heart,  withjn  whose  sacred  cell 
The  peaceful  virtues  loved  to  dwell. 
Affection  warm,  and  faith  sincere, 
And  soft  humanity  were  there. 
In  agony,  in  death  resign'd, 
She  felt  the  wound  she  left  behind. 
Her  infant  image,  here  below, 
Sits  smiling  on  a  father's  woe  : 
Whom  what  awaits,  while  yet  he  strays 
Along  the  lonely  vale  of  days  V 
A  pang,  to  secret  son-ow  dear ; 
A  sigh  ;  an  unavaihng  tear  ; 
Till  Time  shall  every  grief  remove, 
"With  life,  with  memory,  and  with  love. 


EPITAPH.  43 


EPITAPH 

r 

ON   SIR   WILLIAM   WILLIAMS. 

HERE,  foremost   in   the  dangerous  paths  of 
fame, 
Youno-  Williams  fought  for  England's  fair  re- 
nown  ; 
His   mind    each   Muse,   each    Grace   adorn'd   his 
frame, 
Nor  Envy  dared  to  view  him  with  a  frown. 

At  Aix,  his  voluntary  sword  he  drew, 

There  first  in  blood  his  infant  honor  seal'd  ; 

From  fortune,  pleasure,  science,  love,  he  flew. 
And  scorn'd  repose  when  Britain  took  the  field. 

With  eyes  of  flame,  and  cool  undaunted  breast, 
Victor  he  stood  on  Bellisle's  rocky  steeps  — 

Ah,  gallant  youth  !  this  marble  tells  the  rest. 
Where  melancholy  friendship  bends,  and  weeps. 


42  ELEGY, 


ELEGY  WRITTEN  IN  A   COUNTRY 
CHURCHYARD. 

THE  curfew  tolls  the  knell  of  parting  day, 
The  lowing  herd  winds  slowly  o'er  the  lea, 
The  ploughman  homeward  plods  his  weary  way, 
And  leaves  the  world  to  darkness  and  to  me. 

Now  fades  the  glimmering  landscape  on  the  sight, 
And  all  the  air  a  solemn  stillness  holds, 

Save  where  the  beetle  wheels  his  droning  flight, 
And  drowsy  tinklings  lull  the  distant  folds : 

Save  that  from  yonder  ivy-mantled  tower. 
The  moping  owl  does  to  the  moon  complain 

Of  such  as,  wand'ring  near  her  secret  bower, 
Molest  her  ancient  solitary  reign. 

Beneath  those  rugged  elms,  that  yew-tree's  shade, 
Where  heaves  the  turf  in  many  a  mould'ring 
heap. 

Each  in  his  narrow  cell  forever  laid. 

The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep. 

The  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn, 

The  swallow  twitt'ring  from  the  straw-built  shed, 

The  cock's  shrill  clarion,  or  the  echoing  horn, 
No  more  shall  rouse  them  from  their  lowlv  bed. 


ELEGY.  43 

For  them  no  more  the  blazing  hearth  shall  burn, 
Or  busy  housewife  ply  her  evening  care ; 

No  children  run  to  lisp  their  sire's  return, 
Or  climb  his  knees  the  envied  kiss  to  share. 

Oft  did  the  harvest  to  their  sickle  yield, 

Their  furrow  oft  the  stubborn  glebe  has  broke  : 

How  jocund  did  they  drive  their  team  afield  ! 
How   bow'd  the   woods   beneath   their    sturdy 
stroke ! 

Let  not  ambition  mock  their  useful  toil. 
Their  homely  joys,  and  destiny  obscure  ; 

Nor  grandeur  hear  with  a  disdainful  smile 
The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor. 

The  boast  of  heraldry,  the  pomp  of  pow'r. 

And  all  that  beauty,  all  that  wealth  e'er  gave, 

Await  aUke  th'  inevitable  hour. 

The  paths  of  glory  lead  but  to  the  grave. 

Nor  you,  ye  proud,  impute  to  these  the  fault. 
If  memory  o'er  their  tomb  no  trophies  raise, 

"Where  thro'  the  long-drawn  aisle  and  fretted  vault 
The  pealing  anthem  swells  the  note  of  praise. 

Can  storied  lu-n,  or  animated  bust. 
Back  to  its  mansion  call  the  fleeting  breath  ? 

Can  honor's  voice  provoke  the  silent  dust, 
Or  flatt'ry  soothe  the  dull  cold  ear  of  death  ? 

Perhaps  in  this  neglected  spot  is  laid 

Some  heart  once  pregnant  with  celestial  fire  ; 


44  ELEGY. 

Hands,  that  the  rod  of  empire  might  have  sway'd, 
Or  waked  to  ecstasy  the  living  lyre  : 

But  Knowledge  to  their  eyes  her  ample  page 
Rich  with  the  spoils  of  time  did  ne'er  unroU ; 

Chill  penury  repress'd  their  noble  rage, 
And  froze  the  genial  current  of  the  soul. 

Full  many  a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene 

The  dark  unfathom'd  caves  of  ocean  bear : 

Full  many  a  flower  is  born  to  blush  unseen, 
And  waste  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air. 

Some    village    Hampden,    that,    with    dauntless 
breast, 

The  little  tyrant  of  his  fields  withstood. 
Some  mute  inglorious  INlilton,  here  may  rest, 

Some  Cromwell  guiltless  of  his  country's  blood. 

Th'  applause  of  list'ning  senates  to  command, 
The  threats  of  pain  and  ruin  to  despise, 

To  scatter  plenty  o'er  a  smiling  land, 

And  read  their   history  in  a  nation's  eyes. 

Their  lot  forbade  :  nor  circumscribed  alone 

Their  growing  virtues,  but  their  crimes  confined ; 

Forbade  to  wade  through  slaughter  to  a  throne, 
And  shut  the  gates  of  mercy  on  mankind. 

The  struggling  pangs  of  conscious  truth  to  hide, 
To  quench  the  blushes  of  ingenuous  shame. 

Or  heap  the  shrine  of  luxury  and  pride 
With  incense  kindled  at  the  Muse's  flame. 


ELEG  Y.  45 

Far  from  the  madding  crowd's  ignoble  strife, 
Their  sober  wishes  never  learn'd  to  stray ; 

Along  the  cool  sequester'd  vale  of  life 

They  kept  the  noiseless  tenor  of  their  way. 

Yet  ev'n  these  bones  from  insult  to  protect, 
Some  frail  memorial  still  erected  nigh. 

With    uncouth    rhymes    and   shapeless    sculpture 
deck'd. 
Implores  the  passing  tribute  of  a  sigh. 

Their  name,  their  years,  spelt  by  tli*  unletter'd  Muse, 
The  place  of  fame  and  elegy  supply : 

And  many  a  holy  text  around  she  strews, 
That  teach  the  rurtic  moralist  to  die. 

For  who,  to  dumb  forgetfulness  a  prey. 
This  pleasing  anxious  being  e'er  resign 'd, 

Left  the  warm  precincts  of  the  cheerful  day, 
Nor  cast  one  longing  ling'ring  look  behind  ? 

On  some  fond  breast  the  parting  soul  reHes, 
Some  pious  drops  the  closing  eye  requires ; 

E'en  from  the  tomb  the  voice  of  nature  cries. 
E'en  in  our  ashes  hve  their  wonted  fires. 

For  thee,  who,  mindful  of  th'  unhonor'd  dead, 
Dost  in  these  lines  their  artless  tale  relate ; 

If  chance,  by  lonely  contemplation  led. 

Some  kindred  spu-it  shall  inquire  thy  fate,  — 

Haply  some  hoary-headed  swain  may  say, 
"  Oft  have  we  seen  him  at  the  peep  of  dawn 


46  ELEG  Y. 

Brushing  with  hasty  steps  the  dews  away, 
To  meet  the  sun  upon  the  upland  lawn : 

*'  Tliere  at  the  foot  of  yonder  noddmg  beech, 
That  wreathes  its  old  fantastic  roots  so  high. 

His  listless  length  at  noontide  would  he  stretch, 
And  pore  upon  the  brook  that  babbles  by. 

"  Hard  by  yon  wood,  now  smiling  as  in  scorn, 
Mutt'ring  his  wayward  fancies  he  would  rove ; 

Now  drooping,  woful-wan,  like  one  forlorn, 

Or  crazed  with  care,  or  cross'd  in  hopeless  love. 

"  One  morn  I  miss'd  him  on  the  'custom'd  hill, 
Along  the  heath,  and  near  his  fav'rite  tree ; 

Another  came ;  nor  yet  beside  the  rill, 
Nor  up  the  lawn,  nor  at  the  wood  was  he  : 

"  The  next,  with  dirges  due  in  sad  array. 

Slow    through    the    chui'ch-way  path  we   saw 
him  borne  :  — 

Approach  and  read  (for  thou  canst  read)  the  lay 
Graved  on  the  stone  beniiath  yon  aged  thorn." 

THE    EPITAPH. 

Here  rests  his  head  upon  the  lap  of  earth, 
A  youth,  to  fortune  and  to  fame  unknown : 

Fair  Science  frown'd  not  on  his  humble  birth, 
And  Melancholy  mark'd  'him  for  her  own. 

Large  was  his  bounty^  and  liis  soul  sincere, 
Heaven  did  a  recompensti  as  largely  send  ; 


ELEGY.  47 

He  gave  to  mis'ry  (all  he  had)  a  tear, 

He  gain'd  from  heav'n  ('t  was  all  he  wish'd)  a 
friend. 

No  farther  seeh  his  merits  to  disclose, 

Or  draw  his  frailties  from  their  dread  abode, 

(There  they  alike  in  trembling  hope  repose,) 
The  bosom  of  his  Father  and  his  God. 


48  A  LONG  STORY. 


A  LONG  STORY. 

IN  Britain's  isle,  no  matter  where, 
An  ancient  pile  of  building  stands : 
The  Huntingdons  and  Hattons  there 
Employ'd  the  power  of  fiairy  hands 

To  raise  the  ceiling's  fretted  height. 
Each  panel  in  achievements  clothing, 

Rich  windows  that  exclude  the  light. 
And  passages  that  lead  to  nothing. 

Full  oft  with"  a  the  spacious  walls. 
When  he  lad  fifty  winters  o'er  him. 

My  grave  L  rd-Keeper  led  the  brawls  ; 
The  seak  and  maces  danced  before  him. 

His  bushy  beard,  and  shoe-strings  green. 
His  high-crown'd  hat,  and  satin  doublet. 

Moved  the  stout  heart  of  England's  queen. 

Though  Pope  and  Spaniard  could  not  trouble  it. 

What,  in  the  very  first  beginning  ! 

Shame  of  the  versifying  tribe  ! 
Your  hist'ry  whither  are  you  spinning  ? 

Can  you  do  nothing  but  describe  ? 

A  house  there  is  (and  that 's  enough) 
From  whence  one  fatal  morning  issues 


A  LONG  STORY.  .49 

A  brace  of  warriors,  not  in  buff, 

But  rustling  in  their  silks  and  tissues. 

The  first  came  cap-a-pie  from  France, 

Her  conqu'ring  destiny  fulfilling. 
Whom  meaner  beauties  eye  askance. 

And  vainly  ape  her  art  of  killing. 

The  other  Amazon  kind  heav'n 

Had  arm'd  with  spirit,  wit,  and  satire  ; 

But  Cobham  had  the  polish  giv'n, 

And  tipp'd  her  arrows  with  good-nature. 

To  celebrate  her  eyes,  her  air  — 

Coarse  paneg}Tics  would  but  tease  her  ; 

Melissa  is  her  '•  nom  de  guen^e." 

Alas  !  who  would  not  wish  to  please  her  ? 

With  bonnet  blue  and  capuchine, 

And  aprons  long,  they  hid  their  armor  ; 

And  veil'd  their  weapons,  bright  and  keen, 
In  pity  to  the  country  farmer. 

Fame,  in  the  shape  of  Mr.  P — t, 

(By  this  time  all  the  parish  know  it,) 

Had  told  that  thereabouts  there  lurk'd 
A  wicked  imp  they  call  a  poet : 

'\\^io  prowl'd  the  country  far  and  near, 
Bewitch'd  the  children  of  the  peasants, 

Dried  up  the  cows,  and  lamed  the  deer. 

And  suck'd  the  eggs,  and  kill'd  the  pheasants. 


50  A  LONG  STORY. 

My  lady  heard  their  joint  petition, 

Swore  by  her  coronet  and  ermine, 
She  'd  issue  out  her  high  commission 

To  rid  the  manor  of  such  vermin. 

The  heroines  undertook  the  task, 

Thro'  Lanes  unknoAvn,  o'er  stiles  they  ventured, 
Kapp'd  at  the  door,  nor  stay'd  to  ask, 

But  bounce  into  the  parlor  enter'd. 

The  trembling  family  they  daunt. 

They  flirt,  they  sing,  they  laugh,  they  tattle, 
Rummage  his  mother,  pinch  his  aunt. 

And  up  staii-s  in  a  whirlwind  rattle  : 

Each  hole  and  cupboard  they  explore, 
Each  creek  and  cranny  of  his  chamber, 

Run  hurry-scurry  round  the  floor. 
And  o'er  the  bed  and  tester  clamber ; 

Into  the  drawers  and  china  pry, 

Papers  and  books,  a  huge  imbroglio  ! 

Under  a  tea-cup  he  might  lie. 

Or  creased,  like  dogs'-eai-s,  in  a  folio. 

On  the  first  marching  of  the  troops. 

The  Muses,  hopeless  of  his  pardon, 
Convey'd  him  underneath  their  hoops 

To  a  small  closet  in  the  garden. 

So  Rumor  says  :  (who  will,  believe,) 

But  that  they  left  the  door  ajar, 
Where,  safe  and  laughing  in  his  sleeve. 

He  heard  the  distant  din  of  war. 


A  LONG   8 TORY.  51 

Short  was  liis  joy.     He  little  knew 
The  pow'r  of  magic  was  no  fable ; 

Out  of  the  window,  whisk,  they  flew, 
But  left  a  spell  upon  the  table. 

The  words  too  eager  to  unriddle, 

The  poet  felt  a  strange  disorder ; 
Transparent  bird-lime  form'd  the  middle, 

And  chains  invisible  the  border. 

So  cunning  was  the  apparatus. 

The  powerful  pot-hooks  did  so  move  him, 
That,  will  he,  nill  he,  to  the  great  house 

He  went,  as  if  the  Devil  drove  him. 

Yet  on  his  way  (no  sign  of  gi'ace, 

For  folks  in  fear  are  apt  to  pray) 
To  Phoebus  he  preferred  his  case. 

And  begg'd  his  aid  that  dreadful  day. 

The  godhead  would  have  back'd  his  quarrel ; 

But  with  a  blush,  on  recollection, 
Own'd  that  his  quiver  and  his  laurel 

'Gainst  four  such  eyes  were  no  protection. 

The  court  was  sat,  the  culprit  there. 

Forth  from  their  gloomy  mansions  creeping, 

The  lady  Janes  and  Joans  repair. 
And  from  the  gallery  stand  peeping : 

Such  as  in  silence  of  the  night 

Come  (sweep)  along  some  winding  entry, 
(Tyacke  has  often  seen  the  sight,) 

Or  at  the  chapel-door  stand  sentry : 


52  A  LONG  STORY. 

In  peaked  hoods  and  mantles  tarnish'd, 
Sour  \4sages,  enough  to  scare  ye, 

High  dames  of  honor  once,  that  garnish'd 
The  di-awing-room  of  fierce  Queen  Mary. 

The  peeress  comes.     The  audience  stare, 
And  doff  their  hats  with  due  submission  : 

She  curtsies,  as  she  takes  her  chair. 
To  all  the  people  of  condition. 

The  bard,  with  many  an  artful  fib. 
Had  in  imagination  fenced  him. 

Disproved  the  arguments  of  Squib, 

And  all  that  Groom  could  urge  against  him. 

But  soon  his  rhetbric  forsook  him, 
When  he  the  solemn  hall  had  seen ; 

A  sudden  fit  of  ague  shook  him, 
He  stood  as  mute  as  poor  Macleane. 

Yet  something  he  was  heard  to  mutter, 
"  How  in  the  park  beneath  an  old  tree, 

(Without  design  to  hurt  the  butter, 
Or  any  malice  to  the  poultry,) 

"  He  once  or  twice  had  penn'd  a  sonnet ; 

Yet  hoped  that  he  might  save  his  bacon  ; 
Numbers  would  give  their  oaths  upon  it, 

He  ne'er  was  for  a  conj'rer  taken.'* 

The  ghostly  pi-udes  with  hagged  face 
Already  had  condemn'd  the  sinner. 

My  lady  rose,  and  with  a  grace  — 

She  smiled,  and  bid  him  come  to  dinner. 


A  LONG  STORY.  53 

"  Jesu-Maria !  Madam  Bridget, 

Why,  what  can  the  Viscountess  mean  ?  " 
(Cried  the  square-hoods  in  woful  fidget,) 

"  The  times  are  alter'd  quite  and  clean ! 

"  Decorum 's  turn'd  to  mere  civility ; 

Her  air  and  all  her  manners  show  it. 
Commend  me  to  her  affability  ! 

Speak  to  a  conmioner  and  poet ! " 

[Here  five  hundred  stanzas  are  lost.] 

And  so  Gk)d  save  our  noble  king. 

And  guard  us  from  long-winded  lubbers, 

That  to  eternity  would  sing. 

And  keep  my  lady  from  her  rubbers. 


POSTHUMOUS 
POEMS    AND    FRAGMENTS. 


ODE  ON    THE   PLEASURE   ARISING   FROM 
VICISSITUDE. 


NOW  the  golden  morn  aloft 
Waves  her  dew-bespangled  wing, 
With  vermeil  cheek  and  whisper  soft 

She  woos  the  tardy  spring : 
Till  April  starts,  and  calls  around 
The  sleeping  fragrance  from  the  ground  ; 
And  lightly  o'er  the  living  scene 
Scatters  his  freshest,  tenderest  green 

New-born  flocks,  in  rustic  dance. 
Frisking  ply  their  feeble  feet ; 

Forgetful  of  their  wintry  trance, 
The  birds  his  presence  greet : 

But  chief,  the  skylark  warbles  high 

His  trembling  thrilling  ecstasy  ; 

And,  lessening  from  the  dazzled  sight. 

Melts  into  air  and  liquid  light. 

Rise,  my  soul !  on  wings  of  fire. 
Rise  the  rapt'rous  choir  among  ; 

Hark !  't  is  nature  strikes  the  lyre, 
And  leads  the  gen'ral  song  : 


68  ODE. 

*  Warm  let  the  \yr\c  transport  flow, 
Warm  as  the  ray  that  bids  it  glow ; 
And  animates  the  vernal  grove 
With  health,  with  harmony,  and  love. 


Yesterday  the  sullen  year 

Saw  the  snowy  whirlwind  fly ; 
Mute  was  the  music  of  the  air. 
The  herd  stood  drooping  by  : 
Their  raptures  now  that  wildly  flow, 
No  yesterday  nor  morrow  know  ; 
'T  is  man  alone  that  joy  descries 
With  forward  and  reverted  eyes. 


Smiles  on  past  misfortune's  brow 

Soft  reflection's  hand  can  trace ; 
And  o'er  the  cheek  of  sorrow  throw 

A  melancholy  grace ; 
While  hope  prolongs  our  happier  hour, 
Or  deepest  shades,  that  dimly  lower 
And  blacken  round  our  weary  way. 
Gilds  with  a  gleam  of  distant  day. 

Still,  where  rosy  pleasure  leads. 

See  a  kindred  grief  pursue  ; 
Behind  the  steps  that  misery  treads. 

Approaching  comfort  view : 
The  hues  of  bliss  more  brightly  glow. 
Chastised  by  sabler  tints  of  woe ; 
And  blended  form,  with  artful  strife. 
The  strength  and  harmony  of  life. 


ODE.  59 


See  the  \\rretch,  that  long  has  tost 

On  the  thorny  bed  of  pain, 
At  length  repair  his  vigor  lost, 

And  breathe  and  walk  again  : 
The  meanest  floweret  of  the  vale, 
The  simplest  note  that  swells  the  gale, 
The  common  sun,  the  air,  the  skies, 
To  him  are  opening  paradise. 


Humble  quiet  builds  her  cell, 

Near  the  source  whence  pleasure  flows ; 
She  eyes  the  clear  crystalline  well, 

And  tastes  it  as  it  goes. 
'  While  '  far  below  the  '  madding '  crowd 
'  Rush  headlong  to  the  dangerous  flood,' 
AVhere  broad  and  turbulent  it  sweeps, 
'  And '  perish  in  the  boundless  deeps. 

Mark  where  indolence  and  pride, 

'  Soothed  by  flattery's  tinkling  sound,' 
Go,  softly  rolling,  side  by  side, 
Their  dull  but  daily  round  : 
'  To  these,  if  Hebe's  self  should  bring 
The  purest  cup  from  pleasure's  spnng, 
Say,  can  they  taste  the  flavor  high 
Of  sober,  simple,  genuine  joy  ? 

'  Mark  ambition's  march  sublime 
Up  to  power's  meridian  height ; 

While  pale-eyed  envy  sees  him  climb, 
And  sickens  at  the  sight. 


60  ODE. 

Phantoms  of  danger,  death,  and  dread 
Float  hourly  round  ambition's  head ; 
While  spleen,  within  his  rival's  breast, 
Sits  brooding  on  her  scorpion  nest. 

'  Happier  he,  the  peasant,  far, 

From  the  pangs  of  passion  free, 
That  breathes  the  keen  yet  wholesome  air 

Of  rugged  penury. 
He,  when  his  morning  task  is  done, 
Can  slumber  in  the  noontide  sun  ; 
And  hie  him  home,  at  evening's  close, 
To  sweet  repast,  and  calm  repose. 

'  He,  unconscious  whence  the  bliss, 

Feels,  and  owns  in  carols  rude. 
That  all  the  circling  joys  are  his, 

Of  dear  Vicissitude. 
From  toil  he  wins  his  spirits  light. 
From  busy  day  the  peaceful  night ; 
Rich,  from  the  very  want  of  wealth. 
In  heaven's  best  treasures,  peace  and  health. 


TRANSLATION  FROM  ST  AT  I  US.  Cl 


TRANSLATION   OF  A  PASSAGE   FROM 
STATIUS. 

THEB.   LIB.   VI.   VER.   704-724. 

'T^HIRD  in  the  labors  of  the  disc  came  on, 
i-     With  sturdy  step  and  slow,  Hippomedon  ; 
Artful  and  strong  he  poised  the  well-known  weight 
By  Phlegyas  warn'd,  and  fired  by  Mnestheus'  fate, 
That  to  avoid,  and  this  to  emulate. 
His  vigorous  arm  he  tried  before  he  flung, 
Braced  all  his  nerves,  and  every  sinew  struno- ; 
Then,  with  a  tempest's  whirl,  and  wary  eje. 
Pursued  his  cast,  and  hurl'd  the  orb  on  liigh ; 
The  orb  on  high  tenacious  of  its  course. 
True  to  the  mighty  arm  that  gave  it  force. 
Far  overleaps  all  bound,  and  joys  to  see 
Its  ancient  lord  secure  of  victory. 
The  theatre's  green  height  and  woody  wall 
Tremble  ere  it  precipitates  its  fall ; 
'fihe  ponderous  mass  sinks  in  the  cleaving  ground, 
While  vales  and  woods  and  echoing  hills  rebound. 
As  when  from  Etna's  smoking  summit  broke, 
The  eyeless  Cyclops  heaved  tlie  craggy  rock  ; 
Where  Ocean  frets  beneath  the  dashing  oar. 
And  parting  surges  round  the  vessel  roar ; 
'Twas  there  he  aim'd  the  meditated  harm, 
And  scarce  Ulysses  scaped  his  giant  arm. 


G2 


TRANSLATION  FROM  ST  AT  I  US. 


A  tiger's  pride  the  victor  bore  away, 
With  native  spots  and  artful  labor  gay, 
A  shining  border  round  the  margin  roll'd. 
And  calm'd  the  terroi-s  of  his  claws  in  gold. 

Cambridge,  May  8, 1736. 


AG  RIP  PIN  A,  63 


THE  FRAGMENT  OF  A  TRAGEDY, 

DESIGNED   BY  MR.   GRAY  ON  THE   SUBJECT  OF  THE 
DEATH  OF  AGRIPPINA. 

DRAiMATIS  PERSONS. 

Agrippina,  the  Einjrress-mother. 

Nero,  the  Emperor. 

Popp^ea,  believed  to  be  in  love  icith  Otho. 

Otho,  a  young  man  of  quality,  in  love  with  Popp-^la.. 

Seneca,  the  Emperor's  Preceptor. 

Anicetus,  Captain  of  the  Guards. 

Demetrius,  the  Cynic,  friend  to  Seneca. 

AcERONiA,  Confidante  to  Agrippina. 

Scene.  —  The  Emperor's  villa  at  Baice. 
ACT  I.     SCENE  I. 

AGRIPPINA.      ACERONIA. 

Agrip.  'T  is  well,  begone  !  your  errand  is  per- 
form'd,       [_Speaks  as  to  Anicetus  entering. 
The  message  needs  no  comment.     Tell  your  master, 
His  mother  shall  obey  him.     Say  you  saw  her 
Yielding  due  reverence  to  his  high  couimand : 
Alone,  unguarded,  and  without  a  lictor. 
As  fits  the  daughter  of  Germanicus. 
Say,  she  retired  to  Antium ;  there  to  tend 


64  AG  RIP  PIN  A. 

Her  household  cares,  a  woman's  best  employment. 
What  if  you  add,  how  she  turn'd  pale  and  trembled : 
You  think,  you  spied  a  tear  stand  in  her  eye, 
And  would  have  dropp'd,  but  that  her  pride  re- 

strain'd  it  ? 
(Go  !  you  can  paint  it  well)  't  will  profit  \ou. 
And  please  the  stripling.     Yet  't  would  dash  his 

joy 

To  hear  the  spirit  of  Britannicus 

Yet  walks  on  earth  :  at  least  there  are  who  know 

Without  a  spell  to  raise,  and  bid  it  fire 

A  thousand  haughty  hearts,  unused  to  shake 

When  a  boy  frowns,  nor  to  be  lured  with  smiles 

To  taste  of  hollow  kindness,  or  partake 

His  hospitable  board  :  they  are  aware 

Of  th'  unpledged  bowl,  they  love  not  aconite. 

Acer.  He  's  gone  :  and  much  I  hope  these  walls 
alone 
And  the  mute  air  are  privy  to  your  passion. 
Forgive  your  servant's  feai-s,  w^ho  sees  the  danger 
"Which  fierce  resentment  cannot  fail  to  raise 
In  haughty  youth,  and  irritated  power. 

Agrip.    And  dost  thou  talk  to  me,  to  me  of 
danger. 
Of  haughty  youth  and  irritated  power. 
To  her  that  gave  it  being,  her  that  arm'd 
This  painted  Jove,  and  taught  his  novice  hand 
To  aim  the  forked  bolt ;  while  he  stood  trembling, 
Scared  at  the  sound,  and  dazzled  with  its  bright- 
ness? 

'T  is  like,  thou  hast  forgot,  when  yet  a  stranger 
To  adoration,  to  the  grateful  steam 
Of  flattery's  incense,  and  obsequious  vows 


AGRIPPINA.  65 

From  voluntary  realms,  a  puny  boy, 

Deck'd  with  no  other  lustre  than  the  blood 

Of  Agrippina's  race,  he  lived  unknown 

To  fame  or  fortune  ;  haply  eyed  at  distance 

Some  edileship,  ambitious  of  the  power 

To  judge  of  weights  and  measures;  scarcely  dared 

On  expectation's  strongest  wing  to  soar 

High  as  the  consulate,  that  empty  shade 

Of'long-forgotten  liberty :  when  I 

Oped  his  young  eye  to  bear  the  blaze  of  greatness ; 

Show'd  him  where  empire  tower'd,  and  bade  him 

strike 
The  noble  quarry.     Gods  !  then  was  the  time 
To   shrink   from  danger;   fear   might  then  have 

worn 
The  mask  of  prudence  ;  but  a  heart  like  mine, 
A  heart  that  glows  with  the  pure  Julian  fire, 
If  bright  ambition  from  her  craggy  seat 
Display  the  radiant  prize,  will  mount  undaunted. 
Gain  the  rough  heights,  and  gi-asp  the  dangerous 

honor. 
Acer.  Through  various  life  I  have  pui-sued  your 

steps. 
Have  seen  your  soul,  and  wondcr'd  at  its  daring : 
Hence  rise  my  fears.     Nor  am  I  yet  to  learn 
How  vast  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  Nero 
To  such  a  mother  owes  ;  the  world,  you  gave  him, 
Suffices  not  to  pay  the  obligation. 

I  well  remember  too  (for  I  was  present) 
When  in  a  secret  and  dead  hour  of  night, 
Due  sacrifice  perform'd  with  barb'rous  rites 
Of  mutter'd  charms,  and  solemn  invocation, 
You  bade  the  Magi  call  the  dreadful  powers, 
5 


66  AGRIPPINA. 

That  read  futurity,  to  know  the  fate 
Impending  o'er  your  son :  their  answer  was, 
If  the  son  reign,  the  mother  perishes. 
Perish  (you  cried)  the  mother  !  reign  the  son  ! 
He  reigns,  the  rest  is  heaven's  ;  who  oft  has  bade, 
Ev'n  when  its  will  seem'd  wi-ote  in  lines  of  blood, 
Th'  unthought  event  disclose  a  whiter  meaning. 
Think  too  how  oft  in  weak  and  sickly  minds 
The  sweets  of  kindness  lavishly  indulged 
Rankle  to  gall ;  and  benefits  too  great 
To  be  repaid,  sit  heavy  on  the  soul, 
As  unrequited  wrongs.     The  willing  homage 
Of  prostrate  Rome,  the  senate's  joint  applause, 
The  riches  of  the  earth,  the  train  of  pleasures 
That  wait  on  youth,  and  arbitrary  ^wdy  : 
These  were  your  gift,  and  with  them  you  bestow'd 
The  very  power  he  has  to  be  ungrateful. 

Agrip.    Thus  ever  grave  and  undisturb'd  re- 
flection 
Pours  its  cool  dictates  in  the  madding  ear 
Of  rage,  and  thinks  to  quench  the  fire  it  feels  not. 
Say'st  thou  I  must  be  cautious,  must  be  silent, 
And  tremble  at  the  phantom  I  have  raised  ? 
Carry  to  him  thy  timid  counsels.     He 
Perchance  may  heed  'em  :  tell  him  too,  that  one 
AVho  had  such  liberal  power  to  give,  may  still 
With  equal  power  resume  that  gift,  and  raise 
A  tempest  that  shall  shake  her  own  creation 
To  its  original  atoms  —  tell  me  !  say 
This  mighty  emperor,  this  dreaded  hero, 
Has  he  beheld  the  glittering  front  of  war  ? 
Knows  his  soft  ear  the  trumpet's  thrilling  voice, 
And  outcry  of  the  battle  ?     Have  his  limbs 


AGRIPPINA.  67 

Sweat  under  iron  harness  ?     Is  he  not 
The  silken  son  of  dalliance,  nursed  in  ease 
And  pleasure's  flow'ry  lap  ?  —  Rubellius  lives, 
And  Sylla  has  his  friends,  though  school'd  by  fear 
To  bow  the  supple  knee,  and  court  the  times 
With  shows  of  fair  obeisance  ;  and  a  call, 
Like  mine,  might  serve  belike  to  wake  pretensions 
Drowsier  than  theirs,  who  boast  the  genuine  blood 
Of  oiu'  imperial  house. 

Acer.  Did  I  not  wish  to  check  this  dangerous 
passion, 
I  might  remind  my  mistress  that  her  nod 
Can  rouse  eight  hardy  legions,  wont  to  stem 
With  stubborn  nerves  the  tide,  and  face  the  rigor 
Of  bleak  Germania's  snows.     Four,  not  less  brave, 
That  in  Armenia  quell  the  Parthian  force 
Under  the  warlike  Corbulo,  by  you 
Mark'd  for  their  leader :  these,  by  ties  confirm'd, 
Of  old  respect  and  gratitude,  are  yours. 
Surely  the  Masians  too,  and  those  of  Egypt, 
Have  not  forgot  yoiu*  sire  :  the  eye  of  Rome, 
And  the  Praetorian  camp,  have  long  revered, 
AVith  custom'd  awe,  the  daughter,  sister,  wife. 
And  mother  of  their  Caesars. 

Agrip.  Ha  !  by  Juno, 

It  bears  a  noble  semblance.     On  this  base 
My  great  revenge  shall  rise  ;  or  say  we  sound 
The  tnimp  of  liberty ;  there  will  not  want. 
Even  in  the  servile  senate,  ears  to  own 
Her  spirit-stirring  voice ;  Soranus  there, 
And  Cassius ;  Vetus  too,  and  Thrasea, 
Mnds  of  the  antique  cast,  rough,  stubborn  souls 
That  struggle  with  the  yoke.     How  shall  the  spark 


68  AGRIPPINA. 

UiKiuenchable,  that  glows  within  their  breasts, 
Blaze  into  freedom,  when  the  idle  herd 
(Slaves  from  the  womb,  created  but  to  stare, 
And  bellow  in  the  Circus)  yet  will  start, 
And  shake  'em  at  the  name  of  liberty. 
Stung  by  a  senseless  word,  a  vain  tradition, 
As  there  were  magic  in  it  ?     Wrinkled  beldams 
Teach  it  their  grandchildren,  as  somewhat  rare 
That  anciently  appear'd  ;  but  when,  extends 
Beyond  their  chronicle  —  oh  !  't  is  a  cause 
To  arm  the  hand  of  childhood,  and  rebrace 
The  slacken'd  sinews  of  time-wearied  age. 

Yes,  we  may  meet,  ungrateful  boy,  we  may ! 
Again  the  buried  genius  of  old  Rome 
Shall  from  the  dust  uprear  his  reverend  head. 
Roused  by  the  shout  of  millions  :  there  before 
His  high  tribunal  thou  and  I  appear. 
Let  majesty  sit  on  thy  awful  brow. 
And  lighten  from  thy  eye  :  around  thee  call 
The  gilded  swarm  that  wantons  in  the  sunshine 
Of  thy  full  favor ;  Seneca  be  there 
In  gorgeous  phrase  of  labor'd  eloquence 
To  dress  thy  plea,  and  Burrhus  strengthen  it 
With  his  plain  soldier's  oath,  and  honest  seeming. 
Against  thee,  liberty  and  Agrippina : 
The  world,  the  prize ;  and  fair  befall  the  victors. 

But  soft !  why  do  I  waste  the  fruitless  hours 
In  threats  unexecuted  ?     Haste  thee,  fly 
These  hated  walls  that  seem  to  mock  my  shame. 
And  cast  me  forth  in  duty  to  their  lord. 

Acer.  'T  is  time  to  go,  the  sun  is  high  advanced, 
And,  ere  midday,  Nero  will  come  to  Baiae. 

Agrip.    My   thought   aches   at   him;   not   the 
basilisk 


AGRIPPINA.  69 

More  deadly  to  the  sight,  than  is  to  me 
The  cool  injurious  eye  of  frozen  kindness. 
I  will  not  meet  its  poison.     Let  him  feel 
Before  he  sees  me. 

Acer.  "VVhy  then  stays  my  sovereign, 

Where  he  so  soon  may  — 

Agrip.  Yes,  I  will  be  gone, 

But  not  to  Antium  —  all  shall  be  confess'd, 
Whate'er  the  frivolous  tongue  of  giddy  fame 
Has  spread   among  the  crowd ;    things,  that  but 

whisper'd 
Have  arch'd  the  hearer's  brow,  and  riveted 
His  eyes  in  fearful  ecstasy :  no  matter 
T\liat ;  so 't  be  strange  and  dreadful.  —  Sorceries, 
Assassinations,  poisonings  —  the  deeper 
My  guilt,  the  blacker  his  ingratitude. 

And  you,  ye  manes  of  ambition's  victims, 
Enslu'ined  Claudius,  with  the  pitied  ghosts 
Of  the  Syllani,  doom'd  to  early  death, 
(Ye  unavailing  horrors,  fruitless  crimes  ! ) 
If  from  the  realms  of  night  my  voice  ye  hear. 
In  lieu  of  penitence,  and  vain  remorse, 
Accept  my  vengeance.     Though  by  me  ye  bled, 
He  was  the  cause.     My  love,  my  fears  for  him. 
Dried  the  soft  springs  of  pity  in  my  heart, 
And  froze  them  up  with  deadly  cruelty. 
Yet  if  your  injured  shades  demand  my  fate, 
If  murder  cries  for  murder,  blood  for  blood, 
Let  me  not  fall  alone ;  but  crush  his  pride, 
And  sink  the  traitor  in  his  mother's  ruin. 

[  Exeunt 


70  AGRIPPINA. 

SCENE   11. 

OTHO .         POPP^A. 

Otho.    Thus  far  we  're  safe.     Thanks  to  the 
rosy  queen 
Of  amorous  thefts  :  and  had  her  wanton  son 
Lent  us  his  wings,  we  could  not  have  beguiled 
With  more  elusive  speed  the  dazzled  sight 
Of  wakeful  jealousy.     Be  gay  securely ; 
Dispel,  my  fair,  with  smiles,  the  tim'rous  cloud 
That  hangs  on  thy  clear  brow.     So  Helen  look'd, 
So  her  white  neck  reclined,  so  was  she  borne 
By  the  young  Trojan  to  his  gilded  bark 
With  fond  reluctance,  yielding  modesty. 
And  oft  reverted  eye,  as  if  she  knew  not 
Whether  she  fear'd,  or  wish'd  to  be  pursued. 


HYMN  TO  IGNORANCE.  71 


HYMN  TO   IGNORANCE. 

'  A    FRAGMENT. 

HAIL,  horrors,  hall !  ye  ever  gloomy  bowers, 
Ye  gothic  fanes,  and  antiquated  towers, 
Where  rushy  Camus'  slowly-winding  flood 
Perpetual  draws  his  humid  train  of  mud : 
Glad  I  revisit  thy  neglected  reign, 
O  take  me  to  thy  peaceful  shade  again. 
But  chiefly  thee,  whose  influence  breathed   from 

high 
Augments  the  native  darkness  of  the  sky  ; 
Ah,  ignorance  !  soft  salutary  power  ! 
Prostrate  with  filial  reverence  I  adore. 
Thrice  hath  Hyperion  roll'd  his  annual  race. 
Since  weeping  I  forsook  thy  fond  embrace. 
O  say,  successful  dost  thou  still  oppose 
Thy  leaden  aegis  'gainst  our  ancient  foes  ? 
Still  stretch,  tenacious  of  thy  right  divine. 
The  massy  sceptre  o'er  thy  slumb'ring  line  ? 
And  dews  Lethean  through  the  land  dispense 
To  steep  in  slumbers  each  benighted  sense  V 
If  any  spark  of  wit's  delusive  ray 
Break  out,  and  flash  a  momentary  day, 
With  damp,  cold  touch  forbid  it  to  aspire, 
And  huddle  up  in  fogs  the  dang'rous  fire. 

O  say — she  hears  me  not,  but,  careless  grown, 
Lethargic  nods  upon  her  ebon  throne. 


72  HYMX   TO  IGNORANCE. 

Goddess  !  awake,  arise  !  alas,  my  fears  ! 
Can  powers  immortal  feel  the  force  of  years  ? 
Not  thus  of  old,  with  ensigns  wide  unfnrl'd 
She  rode  triumphant  o'er  the  vanquish'd  world ; 
Fierce  nations  own'd  her  unresisted  might, 
And  all  was  ignorance,  and  all  Avas  night. 

O  sacred  age  !     O  times  forever  lost ! 
(The    schoolman's    glory,   and    the   churchman's 

boast.) 
Forever  gone,  —  yet  still  to  fancy  new, 
Her  rapid  Avings  the  transient  scene  pursue, 
And  bring  the  buried  ages  back  to  view. 

High  on  her  car,  behold  the  grandam  ride 
Like  old  Sesostris  with  barbaric  pride ; 
*  *  *  a  team  of  harness'd  monarchs  bend 


EDUCATION  AND   GOVERNMENT. 


THE   ALLIANCE   OF   EDUCATION   AND 
GOVERNMENT. 

A    FRAGMENT. 

ESSAY     I. 

ndray',  a>  'ya9i  •   rav  yap  aoidau 
OvTL  na  €15  'Aifiav  ye  t'ov  iK\e\6.9ovTa  <j)v\a^e'i<;. 

Theocritus,  Id.  I.  63. 

AS  sickly  plants  betray  a  niggard  earth, 
Whose  barren  bosom  starves  her  generous  birth, 
Nor  genial  warmth,  nor  genial  juice  retains, 
Their  roots  to  feed,  and  fill  their  verdant  veins  : 
And  as  in  climes,  where  Winter  holds  his  reign, 
The  soil,  though  fertile,  will  not  teem  in  vain, 
Forbids  her  gems  to  swell,  her  shades  to  rise, 
Nor  trusts  her  blossoms  to  the  churlish  skies : 
So  draw  mankind  in  vain  the  vital  airs, 
Unform'd,  unfriended,  by  those  kindly  cares, 
That  health  and  vigor  to  the  soul  impart, 
Spread  the  young  thought,  and  warm  the  oiiening 

heart : 
So  fond  Instruction  on  the  growing  powers 
Of  nature  idly  lavishes  her  stores, 
If  e([\u\\  Justice  with  unclouded  face 
Smile  not  indulgent  on  the  rising  race, 
And  scatter  with  a  fit-ec,  though  frugal  hand, 
Light  golden  showere  of  plenty  o'er  the  land  : 
But  Tyranny  has  fix'd  her  empire  there, 


74        EDUCATION  AXD   GOVERNMENT. 

To  check  their  tender  hopes  with  chilling  fear, 
And  blast  the  blooming  promise  of  the  year. 

This  spacious  animated  scene  survey, 
From  where  the  rolling  orb,  that  gives  the  day, 
His  sable  sons  with  nearer  course  surrounds 
To  either  pole,  and  life's  remotest  bounds, 
How  rude  soe'er  th'  exterior  form  we  find, 
Howe'er  opinion  tinge  the  varied  mind. 
Alike  to  all,  the  kind,  impartial  heav'n 
The  sparks  of  truth  and  happiness  has  giv'n : 
With  sense  to  feel,  with  memory  to  retain, 
They  follow  pleasure,  and  they  fly  from  pain. ; 
Their  judgment  mends  the  plan  their  fancy  draws, 
The  event  presages,  and  explores  the  cause  ; 
The  soft  retm^ns  of  gratitude  the}'  know, 
By  fraud  elude,  by  force  repel  the  foe  ; 
While  mutual  wishes,  mutual  woes  endear 
The  social  smile,  the  sympathetic  tear. 

Say,  then,  through  ages  by  what  fate  confined 
To  different  climes  seem  different  souls  assign'd  ? 
Here  measured  laws  and  philosophic  ease 
Fix,  and  improve  the  polish'd  arts  of  peace  ; 
There  industry  and  gain  their  vigils  keep. 
Command  the  winds,  and  tame  th'  unwilling  deep : 
Here  force  and  hardy  deeds  of  blood  prevail ; 
There  languid  pleasure  sighs  in  every  gale. 
Oft  o'er  the  trembling  nations  from  afar 
Has  Scythia  breathed  the  living  cloud  of  Avar  ; 
And,  where  the  deluge  burst,  Avith  SAveepy  SAvay 
Their   arms,   their  kings,  their   gods  were   roU'd 

aAvay. 
As  oft  have  issued,  host  impelling  host, 
Tlie  blue-eyed  myriads  from  the  Baltic  coast. 


EDUCATION  AND   GOVERNMENT.        75 

The  prostrate  south  to  the  destroyer  yields 
Her  boasted  titles,  and  her  golden  fields  : 
With  grim  delight  the  brood  of  winter  view 
A  brighter  day,  and  heav'ns  of  azure  hue  ; 
Scent  the  new  fragrance  of  the  breathing  rose, 
And  quaff  the  pendent  vintage  as  it  grows. 
Proud  of  the  yoke,  and  pliant  to  the  rod. 
Why  yet  does  Asia  dread  a  monarch's  nod, 
Whde  European  freedom  still  withstands 
Th'  encroaching  tide  that  drowns  her  lessening 
lands ;  ^ 

And  sees  far  off,  with  an  indignant  groan, 
Her  native  plains,  and  empires  once  her  own  ? 
Can  opener  skies  and  suns  of  fiercer  flame 
O'erpower  the  fire  that  animates  our  fi-ame ; 
As  lamps,  that  shed  at  eve  a  cheerful  ray. 
Fade  and  expire  beneath  the  eye  of  day  ? 
Need  we  the  influence  of  the  northern  star 
To  string  our  nerves  and  steel  our  hearts  to  war  ? 
And,  where  the  face  of  nature  laughs  around, 
INIust  sick'ning  virtue  fly  the  tainted  ground  ? 
Unmanly  thought !  what  seasons  can  control, 
What  fancied  zone  can  circumscribe  the  soul. 
Who,  conscious  of  the   source  from  whence   she 

springs. 
By  reason's  light,  on  resolution's  wings, 
Spite  of  her  frail  companion,  dauntless  goes 
O'er  Libya's  deserts  and  through  Zembla's  snows  ? 
She  bids  each  slumb'ring  energy  awake, 
Another  touch,  another  temper  take, 
Suspends  th*  inferior  laws  that  rule  our  clay : 
The  stubborn  elements  confess  her  sway  ; 
Their  little  wants,  their  low  desires,  refine, 
And  raise  the  mortal  to  a  height  divine. 


7G        EDUCATION  AND  GOVERNMENT. 

Not  but  the  human  fabric  fi-om  the  birth 
Imbibes  a  flavor  of  its  parent  earth  : 
As  various  tracts  enforce  a  various  toil, 
The  mannei-s  speak  the  idiom  of  their  soil. 
An  iron-race  the  mountain-cliffs  maintain, 
Foes  to  the  gentler  genius  of  the  plain  : 
For  where  unwearied  sinews  must  be  found 
With  side-long  plough  to  quell  the  flinty  ground, 
To  turn  the  torrent's  swift-descending  flood, 
To  brave  the  savage  rushing  fi^om  the  wood. 
What  wonder  if  to  patient  valor  train'd, 
They  guard  with  spirit,  what   by  strength   they 

gain'd  ? 
And  while  their  rocky  ramparts  round  they  see, 
The  rough  abode  of  want  and  liberty, 
(As  lawless  force  from  confidence  will  grow) 
Insult  the  plenty  of  the  vales  below  ? 
What  wonder,  in  the  sultry  climes,  that  spread 
Where  Nile  redundant  o'er  his  summer-bed 
From  his  broad  bosom  life  and  verdure  flings, 
And  broods  o'er  Egypt  with  his  wat'ry  wings, 
If  with  advent'rous  oar  and  ready  sail 
The  dusky  people  drive  before  the  gale ; 
Or  on  frail  floats  to  neighb'ring  cities  ride. 
That  rise  and  glitter  o'er  the  ambient  tide 


[The  following  couplet,  which  was  intended  to  have  been  intro- 
duced in  the  poem  on  the  Alliance  of  Education  and  Govern- 
ment, is  much  too  beautiful  to  be  lost.  — Mason,  Vol.  III.  p.  114.] 

When  love  could  teach  a  monarch  to  be  wise, 
And  gospel-light  first  dawn'd  from  Bullen's  eyes. 


STANZAS   TO  MR.  BENT  LEY.  77 


STANZAS   TO   MR.   BENTLEY. 

A  FRAGMENT. 

IN  silent  gaze  the  tuneful  choir  among, 
Half   pleased,   half  blushing,  let  the  Muse 
admire, 
"V\Tiile  Bentley  leads  her  sister-art  along, 
And  bids  the  pencil  answer  to  the  lyre. 

See,  in  their  coui-se,  each  transitory  thought 
Fix'd  by  his  touch  a  lasting  essence  take ; 

Each  dream,  in  fancy's  airy  coloring  wrought, 
To  local  symmetry  and  life  awake  ! 

The  tardy  rhymes  that  used  to  linger  on. 
To  censure  cold,  and  neghgent  of  fame, 

In  swifter  measures  animated  run, 

And  catch  a  lustre  from  his  genuine  flame. 

Ah  !  could  they  catch  his  strength,  his  easy  grace. 
His  quick  creation,  his  unerring  line  ; 

The  energy  of  Pope  they  might  efface. 
And  Dryden's  harmony  submit  to  mine. 

But  not  to  one  in  this  benighted  age 

Is  that  diviner  inspiration  giv'n. 
That  burns  in  Shakespeare's  or  in  Milton's  page, 

The  pomp  and  prodigality  of  heav'n. 


78  STANZAS    TO   MR.   BENTLEY, 

As  when  conspiring  In  the  diamond's  blaze, 
The  meaner  gems  that  singly  charm  the  sight, 

Together  dart  their  intermingled  rays. 
And  dazzle  with  a  luxury  of  light. 

Enough  for  me,  If  to  some  feeling  breast 
My  lines  a  secret  sympathy  '  Impart ' ; 

And  as  their  pleasing  Influence  '  flows  confest,' 
A  sigh  of  soft  reflection  '  heaves  the  heart.' 


SKETCH  OF  HIS   OWN   CHARACTER. 


SKETCH  OF  HIS   OWN   CHARACTER. 

WRITTEN   IN   1761,  AND    FOUND   IN   ONE   OF   HIS   POCKET- 
BOOKS. 

TOO  poor  for  a  bribe,  and  too  proud  to  impor- 
tune, 
lie  had  not  the  method  of  making  a  fortune  : 
Could  love,  and  could  hate,  so  was  thought  some- 
what odd ; 
No  very  great  wit,  he  believed  in  a  God  : 
A  post  or  a  pension  he  did  not  desire, 
But  left  church  and  state  to  Charles  Townshend 
and  Squire. 


^^ 


80  AMATOBY  LINES. 


AMATOEY  LMES. 

WITH  beauty,  with  pleasure  surrounded,  to 
languish  — 

To  weep  without  knowing  the  cause  of  my  an- 
guish: 

To  start  from  short  slumbers,  and  wish  for  the 
morning  — 

To  close  my  dull  eyes  when  I  see  it  returning ; 

Sighs  sudden  and  frequent,  looks  ever  dejected  — 

Words  that  steal  from  my  tongue,  by  no  meaning 
connected ! 

Ah !  say,  fellow-swains,  how  these  symptoms  befell 
me  ? 

They  smile,  but  reply  not — Sure  Delia  will  tell 
me ! 


SONG.  81 


SONG. 

THYRSIS,  when  we  parted,  swore 
Ere  the  spring  he  would  return  - 
Ah  !  what  means  yon  violet  flower, 

And  the  bud  that  decks  the  thorn  ? 
'T  was  the  lark  that  upward  sprung  ! 
'T  was  the  nightingale  that  sung  ! 

Idle  notes  !  untimely  green  ! 

^Tiy  this  unavailing  haste  ? 
"Western  gales  and  skies  serene 

Speak  not  always  winter  past. 
Cease,  my  doubts,  my  fears  to  move, 
Spare  the  honor  of  my  love. 


82  TOPHET. 


TOPHET. 


AN    EPIGRAM. 


THUS  Topliet  look'd ;  so  grinn'd  the  brawling 
fiend, 
Whilst   frighted   prelates   bow'd,  and   call'd   him 

friend. 
Our  mother-church,  with  half-averted  sight, 
Blush'd  as  she  bless'd  her  grisly  proselyte ; 
Hosannas  rung  through  hell's  tremendous  borders, 
And  Satan's  self  had  thouschts  of  takinir  orders. 


M 


IMPROMPTU.  83 


IMPROMPTU, 

SUGGESTED    BY  A  VIEW,   IN    1766,    OF    THE    SEAT    AND 

RUINS  OF  A  DECEASED   NOBLEMAN,   AT 

KINGSGATE,   KENT. 

OLD,  and  abandon'd  by  each  venal  friend, 
Here  H d  form'd  the  pious  resolution 

To  smuggle  a  few  years,  and  strive  to  mend 
A  broken  character  and  constitution. 

On  this  congenial  spot  he  fix'd  his  choice ; 

Earl    Goodwin   trembled    for    his    neigliboring 
sand ; 
Here  sea-gulls  scream,  and  cormorants  rejoice, 
And   mariners,   though    shipwreck'd,   dread   to 
land 

Here   reign   the   blustering   North  and  blighting 
East, 

No  tree  is  heard  to  whisper,  bird  to  sing ; 
Yet  Nature  could  not  furnish  out  the  feast. 

Art  he  invokes  new  horroi*s  still  to  bring. 

Here  mouldering  fanes  and  battlements  arise, 
Turrets  and  arches  nodding  to  their  fall, 

Unpeopled  monast'ries  delude  our  eyes, 
And  mimic  desolation  covers  all. 


84  IMPROMPTU. 

"  Ah  ! "  said  the  sighing  peer,  "  had  B — te  been 
true, 

Nor  M — 's,  R — 's,  B — 's  friendship  vain, 
Far  better  scenes  than  these  had  blest  our  view. 

And  realized  the  beauties  which  we  feign : 

"  Purged  by  the  sword,  and  purified  by  fire, 
Then  had  we  seen  proud  London's  hated  walls ; 

Owls  would  have  hooted  in  St.  Peter's  choir. 
And  foxes  stunk  and  litter'd  in  St.  Paul's." 


EXTRACTS.  85 


EXTRACTS. 


PKOPERTIUS,   LIB.   III.   ELEG.   V.   v.    19. 

"  Me  juvat  in  prima  coluisse  Helicona  juventa,"  &c. 


IMITATED. 


LONG  as  of  youth  the  joyous  hours  remain, 
Me  may  Castalia's  sweet  recess  detain, 
Fast  by  the  umbrageous  vale  lull'd  to  repose, 
Where  Aganippe  warbles  as  it  flows  ; 
Or  roused  by  sprightly  sounds  from  out  the  trance, 
I  'd  in  the  ring  knit  hands,  and  join  the  Muses' 

dance. 
Give  me  to  send  the  laughing  bowl  around, 
My  soul  in  Bacchus'  pleasing  fetters  bound  ; 
Let  on  this  head  unfading  flowei-s  reside, 
There  bloom  the  vernal  rose's  earliest  pride  ; 
And  when,  our  flames  commission 'd  to  destroy, 
Age  step  'twixt  Love  and  me,  and  intercept  the 

joy; 

When  my  changed  head  these  locks  no  more  shall 

know, 
And  all  its  jetty  honors  turn  to  snow  ; 
Then  let  me  rightly  spell  of  Nature's  ways  ; 
To  Providence,  to  Him  my  thoughts  I'd  raise, 


86  EXTRACTS. 

Who  taught  this  vast  machine  its  steadfast  laws, 
That  first,  eternal,  universal  cause  ; 
Search  to  what  regions  yonder  star  retires, 
That  monthly  waning  hides  her  paly  fires. 
And  whence,  anew  revived,  with  silver  light 
Relumes   her  crescent   orb  to   cheer  the   dreary 

night : 
How  rising  winds  the  face  of  ocean  sweep, 
Where  lie  the  eternal  fountains  of  the  deep. 
And  whence  the  cloudy  magazines  maintain 
Their  wintry  war,  or  pour  the  autumnal  rain ; 
How  flames  perhaps,  with  dire  confusion  liurl'd, 
Shall  sink  this  beauteous  fabric  of  the  world  ; 
AVhat  colors  paint  the  vivid  arch  of  Jove  ; 
What  wondrous  force  the  solid  earth  can  move. 
When  Pindus'  self  approaching  ruin  dreads. 
Shakes  all  his  pines,  and  bows  his  hundred  heads ; 
Why  does  yon  orb,  so  exquisitely  bright. 
Obscure  his  radiance  in  a  short-lived  night ; 
Whence  the  Seven  Sisters'  congregated  fires, 
And  what  Bootes'  lazy  wagon  tires  ; 
How  the  rude  surge  its  sandy  bounds  control ; 
Who  measured  out  the  year,  and  bade  the  seasons 

roll; 
If  realms  beneath  those  fabled  torments  know, 
Pangs  without  respite,  fires  that  ever  glow. 
Earth's  monster  brood  stretch'd  on  their  iron  bed, 
The  hissing  terrors  round  Alecto's  head. 
Scarce  to  nine  acres  Tityus'  bulk  confined, 
The  triple  dog  that  scares  the  shadowy  kind, 
All  angry  heaven  inflicts,  or  hell  can  feel, 
The  pendent  rock,  Ixion's  whirling  wheel, 


EXTRACTS. 


87 


Famine  at  feasts,  or  tliii-st  amid  the  stream ; 
Or  are  our  fears  the  enthusiast's  empty  dream, 
And  all  the  scenes,  that  hurt  the  grave's  repose, 
But  pictured  horror  and  poetic  woes. 

These  soft  inglorious  joys  my  hours  engage  ; 
Be  love  my  youth's  pursuit,  and  science  crown  my 
age. 

1738.    M\.  22. 


EXTRACTS. 


PROPERTIUS,   LIB.   II.   ELEG.   I.   v.    17. 

"  Quod  mihi  si  tantum,  Msecenas,  fata  dedissent,"  &c. 

YET  would  the  tyrant  Love  permit  me  raise 
My  feeble  voice,  to  sound  the  victor's  praise, 
To  paint  the  hero's  toil,  the  ranks  of  war, 
The  laurell'd  triumph,  and  the  sculptured  car ; 
No  giant  race,  no  tumult  of  the  skies, 
No  mountain-structures  in  my  verse  should  rise  ? 
Nor  tale  of  Thebes,  nor  Ilium  there  should  be. 
Nor  how  the  Persian  trod  the  indignant  sea ; 
Not  Marius'  Cimbrian  wreaths  would  I  relate. 
Nor  lofty  Carthage  struggling  with  her  fate. 
Here  should  Augustus  great  in  arms  appear, 
And  thou,  Mjecenas,  be  my  second  care  ; 
Here  Mutina  from  flames  and  famine  free, 
And  there  the  ensanguined  wave  of  Sicily, 
And  sceptred  Alexandria's  captive  shore. 
And  sad  Philippi,  red  with  Roman  gore  : 
Then,  while  the  vaulted  skies  loud  ios  rend. 
In  golden  chains  should  loaded  monarchs  bend, 
And  hoary  Nile  with  pensive  aspect  seem 
To  mourn  the  glories  of  his  sevenfold  stream, 
While  prows,  that  late  in  fierce  encounter  met, 
Move  through  the  sacred  way  and  vainly  threat, 
Thee  too  the  Muse  should  consecrate  to  fame. 
And  with  her  garlands  weave  thy  ever-faithful 
name. 


EXTRA  CTS.  89 

But  nor  CalUmachus'  enervate  strain 
May  tell  of  Jove,  and  Phlegra's  blasted  plain  ; 
Nor  I  with  unaccustomed  vigor  trace 
Back  to  its  source  divine  the  Julian  race. 
Sailors  to  tell  of  winds  and  seas  delight, 
The  shepherd  of  his  flocks,  the  soldier  of  the  fight. 
A  milder  warfare  I  in  verse  display ; 
Each  in  his  proper  art  should  waste  the  day  : 
Nor  thou  my  gentle  calling  disapprove, 
To  die  is  glorious  in  the  bed  of  Love. 

Happy  the  youth,  and  not  unknoAvn  to  fame, 
Whose  heart  has  never  felt  a  second  flame. 
Oh,  might  that  envied  happiness  be  mine  ! 
To  Cynthia  all  my  wishes  I  confine  ; 
Or  if,  alas  !  it  be  my  fate  to  try 
Another  love,  the  quicker  let  me  die  : 
But  she,  the  mistress  of  my  faithful  breast, 
Has  oft  the  charms  of  constancy  confcst, 
Condemns  her  fickle  sex's  fond  mistake. 
And  hates  the  tale  of  Troy  for  Helen's  sake. 
Me  from  myself  the  soft  enchantress  stole  ; 
Ah  !  let  her  ever  my  desires  control. 
Or  if  I  fall  the  victim  of  her  scorn. 
From  her  loved  door  may  my  pale  corse  l>e  borne. 
The  power  of  herbs  can  other  harms  remove, 
And  find  a  cure  for  every  ill,  but  love. 
The  Lemnian's  hurt  Machaon  could  repair, 
Heal  the  slow  chief,  and  send  again  to  war ; 
To  Chiron  Phoenix  owed  his  long-lost  sight, 
And  Phoebus'  son  recall'd  Androgeon  to  the  light. 
Here  arts  are  vain,  e'en  magic  here  must  fail, 
The  powerful  mixture  and  the  midnight  spell ; 


90  EXTRACTS. 

The  hand  that  can  my  captive  heart  release, 
And  to  this  bosom  give  its  wonted  peace, 
May  the  long  thirst  of  Tantalus  allay, 
Or  drive  the  infernal  vulture  from  his  prey. 
For  ills  unseen  what  remedy  is  found  ? 
Or  who  can  probe  the  undiscover'd  wound  ? 
The  bed  avails  not,  nor  the  leech's  care. 
Nor  changing  skies  can  hurt,  nor  sultry  air. 
'T  is  hard  th'  elusive  symptoms  to  explore  : 
To-day  the  lover  walks,  to-morrow  is  no  more  ; 
A  train  of  mourning  friends  attend  his  pall, 
And  wonder  at  the  sudden  funeral. 

When  then  the  Fates  that  breath  they  gave  shall 
claim. 
And  the  short  marble  but  preserve  a  name, 
A  little  verse  my  all  that  shall  remain  ; 
Thy  passing  courser's  slacken'd  speed  restrain  ; 
(Thou  envied  honor  of  thy  poet's  days, 
Of  all  our  youth  the  ambition  and  the  praise  !) 
Then  to  ray  quiet  urn  awhile  draw  near. 
And  say,  while  o'er  that  place  you  drop  the  tear. 
Love  and  the  fair  were  of  his  youth  the  pride ; 
He   lived,  while   she   was   kind ;    and   when   she 
frown'd,  he  died. 

April,  1742.    Mt  26. 


EXTRACTS.  91 


TASSO  GERUS.  LIB.  CANT.  XIV.  ST.  32. 

"  Preser  commiato,  e  si  '1  desio  gli  sprona,"  &c. 

DISMISS'D  at  length,  they  break  through  all 
delay 
To  tempt  the  dangei-s  of  the  doubtful  way ; 
And  first  to  Ascalon  their  steps  they  bend, 
AVhose  walls  along  the  neighboring  sea  extend. 
Nor  yet  in  prospect  rose  the  distant  shore  ; 
Scarce  the  hoarse  waves  from  far  were  heard  to 

roar, 
When  thwart  the  road  a  river  roll'd  its  flood 
Tempestuous,  and  all  further  course  withstood ; 
The  torrent  stream  his  ancient  bounds  disdains, 
Swoll'n  with  new  force,  and  late-descending  rains. 
Irresolute  they  stand  ;  when  lo  !  appears 
The  wondrous  Sage :  vigorous  he  seem'd  in  years, 
Awful  his  mien,  low  as  his  feet  there  flows 
A  vestment  unadorn'd,  though  white  as  new-fall'n 

snows ; 
Against  the  stream  the  waves  secure  he  trod. 
His  head  a  chaplet  bore,  his  hand  a  rod. 

As  on  the  Rhine,  when  Boreas'  fury  reigns, 
And  winter  binds  the  floods  in  icy  chains. 
Swift  shoots  the  village-maid  in  rustic  play 
Smooth,  without  step,  adown  the  shining  way. 
Fearless  in  long  excursion  loves  to  glide, 
And  sports  and  v/antons  oVr  tlie  frozen  tide. 


92  EXTRACTS. 

So  moved  the  Seer,  but  on  no  harden'd  plain  ; 
The  river  boil'd  beneath,  and  rush'd  toward  the 

main. 
Where  fix'd  in  wonder  stood  the  warlike  jiair, 
His  course  he  turn'd,  and  thus  relieved  their  care. 

"  Vast,  O  mj  friends,  and  difficult  the  toil 
To  seek  your  hero  in  a  distant  soil ! 
No  common  helps,  no  common  guide  ye  need. 
Art  it  requires,  and  more  than  winged  speed. 
"What  length  of  sea  remains,  what  various  lands, 
Oceans  unknown,  inhospitable  sands  ! 
For  adverse  fate  the  captive  chief  has  hurl'd 
Beyond  the  confines  of  our  narrow  world : 
Great  things  and  full  of  wonder  in  your  ears 
I  shall  unfold ;  but  first  dismiss  your  fears ; 
Nor  doubt  with  me  to  tread  the  downward  road 
That  to  the  grotto  leads,  my  dark  abode." 

Scarce  had  he  said,  before  the  warriors'  eyes 
When  mountain-high  the  waves  disparted  rise ; 
The  flood  on  either  hand  its  billows  rears. 
And  in  the  midst  a  spacious  arch  appears. 
Their  hands  he  seized,  and  doAvn  the  steep  he  led 
Beneath  the  obedient  river's  inmost  bed  ; 
The  watery  glimmerings  of  a  fainter  day 
Discover'd  half,  and  half  conceal'd  their  way  ; 
As  when  athwart  the  dusky  woods  by  night 
The  uncertain  crescent  gleams  a  sickly  light. 
Through  subterraneous  passages  they  v.rent, 
Earth's  inmost  cells,  and  caves  of  deep  descent ; 
Of  many  a  flood  they  view'd  the  secret  source, 
The  birth  of  rivers  rising  to  their  course, 
Whate'er  with  copious  train  its  channel  fills, 
Floats  into  lakes,  and  bubbles  into  rills ; 


EXTRACTS.  93 

The  Po  was  there  to  see,  Danubius'  bed, 
Euphrates'  fount,  and  Nile's  mysterious  head. 
Further  they  pass,  where  ripening  minerals  flow, 
And  embryon  metals  undigested  glow, 
Sulphureous  veins  and  living  silver  shine, 
"Which  soon  the  j^arent  sun's  warm  powers  refine, 
In  one  rich  mass  unite  the  precious  store, 
The  parts  combine  and  harden  into  ore : 
Here  gems  break  through  the  night  with  glittering 

beam. 
And  paint  the  margin  of  the  costly  stream, 
All  stones  of  lustre  shoot  their  vivid  ray, 
And  mix  attemper'd  in  a  various  day  ; 
Here  the  soft  emerald  smiles  of  verdant  hue, 
And  rubies  flame,  with  sapphire's  heavenly  blue. 
The  diamond  there  attracts  the  wondrous  sight. 
Proud  of  its  thousand  dyes  and  luxury  of  light. 

1738.    j:t.  22. 


^ 


di     MARRIAGE   OF  PRINCE   OF   WALES. 


POEMATA. 


HYMENEAL 

ON  THE  MARRIAGE   OF  HIS   ROYAL   HIGHNESS   THE 
PRINCE  OF  WALES. 

IGNAR^  nostrum  mentes,  et  inertia  corda, 
Dum  curas  regum,  et  sortem  miseramur  ini- 
quam, 
Quae  solio  affixit,  vetultque  calescere  flamnia 
Dulci,  quae  dono  divum,  gratissima  serpit 
Viscera  per,  mollesque  animis  lene  implicat  ffistus ; 
Nee  teneros  sensus,  Veneris  nee  praemia  norunt, 
Elo([a!umve  oculi,  aut  faeunda  silentia  linguae  : 
Scilicet  ignorant  lacrymas,  saevosque  dolores, 
Dura  rudinienta,  et  violentae  exordia  flammas ; 
Scilicet  ignorant,  quae  fluniine  tinxit  aniaro 
Tela  Venus,  caecique  annanientaria  Divi, 
Irascpie,  insidiasque,  et  taciturn  sub  pectore  vulnr.s; 
Nanivque  sub  ingressu,  prinioque  in  limine  Amorls 
Luctus  et  ultrices  posuere  cubilia  Cura? ; 
lutus  habent  duices  Risus,  et  (xratia  sedcm, 
Et  roseis  resupina  toris,  roseo  ore  Voluptas  : 
Regibus  hue  faeiles  aditus  ;  conimunia  spernunt 
Ostia,  janique  expers  duris  custodibus  istis 
Panditur  aecessus,  penetraliaque  intima  Temjpli. 


MARRIAGE   OF  PRINCE   OF    WALES.     So 

Tuque    Oh!    Angliacis,   Princeps,   spes   optima 
regnis, 
Ne  tantum,  ne  finge  metum  :  quid  imagine  captus 
Haeres,  et  mentem  pictura  pascis  inani  ? 
Umbram  miraris  :  nee  longum  tempus,  et  ipsa 
Ibit  in  amplexus,  thalamosque  ornabit  ovantes. 
Hie  tamen  tabulis  inhians  longum  liaurit  amorera, 
Affatu  fi^uitur  tacito,  auscultatque  tacentem 
Immemor  artificis  calami,  risumque,  ruboremque 
Aspicit  in  fucis,  picta^que  in  virginis  ore  : 
Tanta  Venus  potuit ;  tantus  tenet  error  amantes. 

Nascere,  magna  Dies,  qua  sese  Augusta  Bri- 
tanno 
Committat  Pelago,  patriamque  relinquat  amoinam ; 
Cujus  in  adventum  jam  nunc  tria  regna  secundos 
Attolli  in  plausus,  dulcique  accensa  furore 
Incipiunt  agitare  modos,  et  carmina  dicunt : 
Ipse  animo  sed  enim  juvenis  comitatur  euntem 
Explorat  ventos,  atque  auribus  aera  captnt, 
Atque  auras,  atque  astra  vocat  crudelia ;  pectus 
Intentum  exultat,  surgitque  arrecta  cupido ; 
Incusat  spes  aegra  fi-etum,  solitoque  videtur 
Latior  efFundi  pontus,  fluctusque  morantes. 

Nascere,  Lux  major,  qua  sese  Augusta  Bri- 
tanno 
Committat  juveni  totam,  propriamque  dicabit ; 
At  citius  (precor)  Oii !  cedas  melioribus  astris ; 
Nox  finem  pompse,  finemque  imponere  curis 
Possit,  et  in  thalamos  furtim  deducere  nuptam ; 
Sufficiat  requiemque  viris,  et  amantibiis  umbras : 
Adsit  Hymen,  et  subridens  cum  matre  Cupido 


96      MARRIAGE   OF  PRINCE   OF    WALES. 

Accedant,  sternantque  toros,  ignemqiie  mlnistrent ; 
Ilicet  hand  picts  incandescit  imagine  fonnae 
Ulterius  juvenis,  verumque  agnoscit  amorem. 

Sciilptile  sicut  ebur,  faciemque  arsisse  veniistam 
Pygmaliona  canunt :  ante  banc  suspiria  ducit, 
Alloquiturque  amens,  flammamque  et  vulnera  nar- 

rat ; 
Implorata  Venus  jussit  cum  vivere  signum, 
Fcemineam   inspirans   animam ;   qu^  gaudia  sur- 

gunt, 
Audiit  ut  primae  nascentia  murmura  linguae, 
Luctari  in  vitam,  et  paulatim  volvere  ocellos 
Sedulus,  aspexitque  novil  splendescere  flamma,; 
Corripit  amplexu  vivam,  jamque  osculajungit 
Acria  confestim,  recipitque  rapitque  ;  prioris 
Immemor  ardoris,  Nymphseque  oblitus  eburneae. 
Tho.  Gray,  Pet.  Coll. 


LUNA  HABITABILIS.  97 


LUNA  HABITABILIS. 

DUM  Nox  rorantes,  non  incomitata  per  auras 
Urget  equos,  tacitoque  inducit  sidera  lapsu ; 
Ultima,  sed  nulli  soror  inficianda  sovorum, 
Hue  mihi,  Miisa ;  tibi  patet  alti  janua  coeli, 
Astra  vides,  nee  te  numeri,  nee  nomina  ftillunt. 
Hue  mihi,  Diva  veni ;  dulce  est  per  aperta  serena 
Vere  frui  liquido,  campoque  errare  silenti ; 
Vere  frui  dulee  est ;  modo  tu  dignata  petentem 
Sis  comes,  et  mecum  gelida  spatiere  sub  umbra. 
Scilicet  hos  orbis,  coeli  hsec  decora  alta  putandum 

est, 
Noctis  opes,  nobis  tantum  lucere  ;  virumque 
Ostentari  oculis,  nostra  laquearia  terras, 
Ingentes  scenas,  vastique  aulasa  tlieatri  ? 
Oh  !  quis  me  pennis  aethrae  super  ardua  sistet 
Mirantem,  propiusque  dabit  convexa  tueri ; 
Teque  adeo,  unde  fluens  reficit  lux  mollior  arva 
Pallidiorque  dies,  tristes  solata  tenebras  ? 

Sic  ego,  subridens  Dea  sic  ingressa  vicissim : 
Non  pennis  opus  hic,  supera  ut  simul  ilia  petamus-- 
Disce,  Puer,  potiiis  coelo  deducere  Lunam ; 
Neu  crede  ad  magicas  te  invitum  accingier  artes, 
Thcssalicosve  modos  ;  ipsam  descendere  Phoeben 
Conspicies  novus  Endymion ;  seque  ofFeret  ultro 
Visa  tibi  ante  oculos,  et  nota  major  imago. 
7 


98  LUNA  HABITABILIS. 

Quin  tete  admoveas  (tumuli  super  aggere  spec- 

tas), 
Compositum  tubulo  ;  simul  imum  invade  canalem 
Sic  intenta  acie,  eceli  simul  alta  patescent 
Atria ;  jamque,  ausus  Lunaria  visere  regna, 
Ingrediere  solo,  et  caput  inter  nubila  condes. 

Ecce  autem  !  vitri  se  in  vertice  sistere  Plioeben 
Cernis,  et  Oceanum,  et  crebris  Freta  consita  terris. 
Panditur  ille  atram  faciem  caligine  condens 
Sublustri ;  refugitque  oculos,  failitque  tuentem  ; 
Integram  Solis  lucem  quippe  liaurit  aperto 
Fluctu  avidus  radiorum,  et  longos  imbiblt  ignes : 
Verum  his^  quae,  maculis  variata  nitentilius,  auro 
Ccerula  discernunt,  celso  sese  insula  dorse 
Plurima  protrudit,  prajtentaque  littora  saxis ; 
Liberior  datur  his  quonikm  natura,  minusque 
Lumen  depascunt  liquidum  ;  sed  tela  diei 
Detorquent,  retroque  docent  se  vertere  flammas. 
Hinc  longos  videas  tractus,  terrasque  jacentes 
Ordine  candenti,  et  claros  se  attoUere  montes ; 
Montes  quels  Rhodope  assm-gat,  quibus  Ossa  nivali 
Vertice :  tum  scopulis  infra  pendentibus  antra 
Nigrescunt    clivorum   umbra,   nemorumque   tene- 

bris. 
Non  rores  iUi,  aut  desunt  sua  nubila  mundo ; 
Non    frigus    gelidum,    atque    herbis    gratissimus 

imber ; 
His  quoque  nota  ardet  picto  Thaumantias  arcu, 
Os  roseum  Auroras,  propriique  crepuscula  cceli. 

Et  dubitas  tantum  certis  cultoribus  orbem 
Destitui  ?  exercent  agros,  sua  moenia  condunt 
Hi  quoque,  vel  Martem  invadunt,  curantque  tri- 

umphos. 


LUNA  HABIT ABILIS.  99 

Victores :  sunt  hie  etiam  sua  prasmia  laudi ; 

His  metus,  atque  amor,  et  mentem  mortalia  tan- 

gunt. 
Quin,  uti  nos  oculis  jam  nunc  juvat  ire  per  arva, 
Lucentesque  plagas  Lunse,  pontumque  profundum ; 
Idem  illos  eti^m  ardor  agit,  cum  se  aureus  effert 
Sub  sudum  globus,  et  terrarum  ingentior  orbis ; 
Scilicet  omne  «quor  tum  lustrant,  scilicet  omnem 
Tellurem,  gentesque  polo  sub  utroque  jacentes  ; 
Et  quidam  asstivi  indefessus  ad  aetheris  ignes 
Pervigilat,  noctem  exercens,  coelumque  fatigat ; 
Jam  Galli  apparent,  jam  se  Germania  late 
Tollit,  et  albescens  pater  Apenninus  ad  auras ; 
Jam    tandem    in    Borean,   en  !    parvulus   Anglia 

naevus 
(Quanquam  aliis  longe  fulgentior)  extulit  oras ; 
Formosimi  extemplo  lumen,  maculamque  nitentem 
Invisunt  crebri  Proceres,  serumque  tuendo 
Hserent,  certatimque  suo  cognomine  signant : 
Foi'sitan  et  Lunas  longinquus  in  orbe  Tyrannus 
Se  dominum  vocat,  et  nostra  se  jactat  in  aula. 
TeiTas  possim  alias,  propiori  sole  calentes 
Narrare,  atque  alias,  jubaris  quels  parcior  usus, 
Lunarum  chorus,  et  tenuis  penuria  Phoebi ; 
Ni  meditans  eadem  haec  audaci  evolvere  cantu. 
Jam  pulset  citharam  soror,  et  prasludia  tentet. 

Non  tamen  has  proprias  laudes,  nee  facta  silebo 
Jampridem  in  fatis,  patriaeque  oracula  famse. 
Terapus  erit,  sursiim  totos  contendere  coetus 
Quo  cernes  longo  excursu,  primosque  colonos 
Migrare  in  lunam,  et  notos  mutare  Penates  : 
Dum  stupet  obtutu  tacito  vetus  incola,  longeque 
Insolitas  explorat  aves,  classemque  volantem. 


100  LUNA  HABITABILIS. 

Ut  quondkm  ignotum  marmor,  camposque  na- 

tantes 
Tranavit  ZepbjTos  \dsens,  nova  regna,  Columbus ; 
Litora  mirantur  circum,  mirantur  et  undse 
Inclusas  acies  ferro,  turmasque  biformes, 
Monstraque  foeta  armis,  et  non  imitabile  fulme 
Fcedera  mox  icta,  et  gemini  commercia  mundi, 
Agminaque  assueto  glomerata  sub  asthere  cerno. 
Anglia,  quae  pelagi  jamdudum  torquet  habenas, 
Exercetque  frequens  ventos,  atque  imperat  undae  ; 
Aeris  attoUet  fasces,  veteresque  triumphos 
Hue  etiam  feret,  et  victis  dominabitur  auris. 


BAPPHIC   ODE.  101 


SAPPHIC   ODE:    TO  MR.    WEST. 

BARBARAS  aedes  aditure  mecum 
Quas  Eris  semper  fovet  inquieta, 
Lis  ubi  late  sonat,  et  togatum 

^stuat  agmen ; 

Dulcius  quanto,  patuHs  sub  ulnii 
Hospitae  ramis  temere  jacentem 
Sic  libris  horas,  tenuique  inertes 

Fallere  Musa  ? 

Saepe  enim  euris  vagor  expedita 

Mente  ;  dum,  blandam  meditans  Camaenam, 

Vix  malo  rori,  meminive  ser£e 

Cedere  nocti ; 

Et,  pedes  quo  me  rapiunt,  in  omni 
Colle  Parnassum  videor  videre 
Fertilem  sylvae,  gelidamque  in  omni 

Fonte  Aganippen. 

Risit  et  Yer  me,  facilesque  Nympliae 
Nare  captantem,  nee  ineleganti, 
Mane  quicquid  de  violis  eundo 

Surripit  aura : 

Me  reclinatum  teneram  per  herbam ; 
Quk  leves  cursus  aqua  eunque  ducit, 
Et  moras  dulci  strepitu  lapillo 

Nectit  in  omni. 


102  SAPPHIC   ODE. 

Hae  novo  nostrum  fere  pectus  anno 
Simplices  curae  tenuere,  coelum 
Quamdiii  sudum  explicuit  Favoni 

Purior  hora. 

Otia  et  campos  nee  adliuc  relinquo, 
Nee  magis  Phcebo  Clytie  fidelis ; 
(Ingruant  venti  licet,  et  senescat 

Mollior  sestas.) 

Namque,  seu,  laetos  hominum  labores 
Prataque  et  montes  recreante  curru, 
Purpura  tractus  oriens  Eoos 

Vestit,  et  auro ; 

Sedulus  servo  veneratus  orbem 
Prodigum  splendoris ;  amoeniori 
Sive  dilectam  meditatur  igne 

Pingere  Calpen; 

Usque  dum,  fulgore  magis  magis  jam 
Languido  circum,  variata  nubes 
Labitur  furtim,  vii-idisque  in  umbras 

Scena  recessit. 

O  ego  felix,  vice  si  (nee  unquam 
Surgerem  rursus)  simili  cadentem 
Parca  me  lenis  sineret  quieto 

Fallere  Letho ! 

Multa  flagranti  radiisque  cincto 
Integris  ah  !  quam  nihil  inviderem, 
Cum  Dei  ardentes  medius  quadrigas 

Sentit  Olympus. 


ELEGIAC   VERSES.  103 


ALCAIC  FRAGMENT. 

OLACRYMARUM  fons,  tenero  sacros 
Ducentium  ortus  ex  animo ;  quater 
Felix  !  in  imo  qui  scatentem 
Pectore  te,  pia  Nynipha,  sensit. 


LATIN   LINES 

ADDRESSED    TO    MR.     WEST,     FROM     GENOA. 

HORRIDOS  tractus,  Boreseque  linquens 
Regna  Taurini  fera,  molliorem 
Advelior  brumam,  Genuaeque  amantes 
Litora  soles. 


ELEGIAC    VERSES,  - 

OCCASIONED  BY  THE  SIGHT  OF  THE   PLAINS    WHERE   THE 
BATTLE   OF   TREBIA    AVAS   FOUGHT. 

QUA  Trebie  glaucas  saliccs  intersecat  unda, 
Arvaque  Romanis  nobllitata  mails. 
Visas  adhue  amnis  veteri  de  clade  rubere, 

Et  suspiraiites  ducero  moestus  aquas  ; 
Maurorumque  ala,  et  nigras  increbescure  turmos, 
Et  pulsa  Ausonidum  ripa  sonare  fuga. 


104      AD   C.  FAVONIUM  ZEPHYRINUM. 


CARMEN  AD  C.  FAVONIUM  ZEPHYRINUM 


MATER  rosarum,  cui  tenersa  vigent 
Aurae  Favoni,  cui  Venus  it  comes 
Lasciva,  Nyinpharum  choreis 
Et  volucrum  celebrata  cantu  ! 
Die,  non  inertem  fallere  qua  diem 
Amat  sub  umbra,  seu  sinit  aureum 
Dormire  plectrum,  seu  retentat 
Pierio  Zephyrinus  antro 
Furore  dulci  plenus,  ct  immemor 
Reptantis  inter  fi-igora  Tusculi 
Umbrosa,  vel  colics  Amici 
Palladiaa  superantis  Albae. 
Dilecta  Fauno,  et  capripedum  clioris 
Pineta,  testor  vos,  Anio  minax 
Qua3cunque  per  clivos  volutus 
Pra3cipiti  tremefecit  amne, 
lUius  altum  Tibur,  et  j^suUe 
Audisse  sylvas  nomcn  amabiles, 
Illins  et  gi-atas  Latinis 
Naisiu  ingeminasse  rupcs ; 
Nam  me  Latinje  Niides  uvida 
Videre  ripfi,  qua  niveas  levi 
Tam  saepe  lavit  rore  plumas 
Dulce  canens  Venusinus  ales ; 
Mirum  !  canenti  conticuit  nemus, 
Sacrique  fontes,  et  retinent  adhuc 


AB    C.   FAVONIUM  ZEPHYRINUM,      105 

(Sic  Musa  jussit)  saxa  molles 
Docta  modos,  veteresque  lauri. 
Mirare  nee  tu  me  citharae  rudem 
Claudis  laborantem  numeris  :  loca 
Ama3na,  jucundumqne  ver  in- 
compositum  docuere  carmen ; 
Ilaerent  sub  omni  nam  folio  nigi-i 
Plicfibea  luci  (credite)  somnia, 
Argutiusque  et  lympha  et  aurse 
Nescio  quid  solito  loquuntur. 


106  THE  GAURUS. 


FRAGMENT  OF  A  LATIN  POEM  ON  THE 
GAURUS. 

NEC  prociil  infelix  se  tollit  in  aetbera  Gaurus, 
Prospiciens  vitreum  lugenti  vertice  pontum : 
Tristlor  ille  diu,  et  veteri  desuetus  oliva 
Gaums,  pampineaeque  eheu  jam  nesclus  uinl^rae ; 
Horrendi  tarn  sseva  premit  vieinia  montis, 
Attonitumque  urget  latus,  exuritquc  ferentt'iii. 
Nam  fama  est  olim,  media  dum  riira  silcbant 
Nocte,  Deo  victa,  et  molli  perfusa  quiete, 
Infremuisse  aequor  ponti,  audit am(|ue  per  omnes 
Late  tellurem  surdiim  immugire  cavernas : 
Quo  sonitu  nemo'ra  alta  tremunt :  tremit  excita  tuto 
Parthenopaea  sinu,  flammantisque  ora  Vesevi. 
At  subito  se  aperire  solum,  vastos(|ue  recessus 
Pandere  sub  pedibus,  nigraque  voragine  fauces  ; 
Tum  piceas  cinerum  glomerare  sub  setliere  nubes 
Vorticibus  rapidis,  ardentique  imbre  procellam. 
Prajcipites  fugere  feraa,  perque  avia  longe 
Syl varum  fugit  pastor,  juga  per  deserta, 
Ah,  miser !  increpitans  siepc  alta  voce  per  umbr-mi 
Ncquictpiam  natos,  creditque  audire  sequentes. 
Atque  ille  excelso  rupis  de  vertice  solus 
Respectans  notasque  domos,  et  dulcia  regna 
Nil  usquam  videt  infelix  praeter  mare  tristi 
Lumine  percussum,  et  pallentes  sulplmre  campos 
Fumumque,  flammasque,  rotataque  turbine  saxa. 


THE  GAURUS.  io7 

Quin  ubi  detonuit  fragor,  et  lux  reddita  coelo ; 
Msestos  confluere  agricolas,  passuque  ^dderes 
Tandem  iterum  tiinido  deserta  reqiiirere  tecta : 
Sperantes,^  si  forte  oculis,  si  forte  darentur 
Uxorum  cineres,  miseroriimve  ossa  parentiun 
(Tenuia,  sed  tanti  saltern  solatia  luctils) 
Una  colligere  et  justa  componere  in  urna. 
Uxorum  nusquam  cineres,  nusquam  ossa  parentum 
(Spem  miseram !)  assuetosve  Lares,  aut  rura  vide- 

bunt. 
Quippe  ubi  planities  campi  diffusa  jacebat ; 
Mons  novus :  ille  supercilium,  frontemque  favilla 
Incanum  ostentans,  ambustis  cautibus,  squor 
Subjcctum,  stragemque  suam,  masta  arva,  minaci 
Bespicit  imperio,  soloque  in  littore  regnat. 

Hinc  infame  loci  nomen,  multosque  per  annos 
Immemor  antiquse  laudis,  nescire  labores 
Vomeris,  et  nullo  tellus  revirescere  cultu. 
Non  avium  colles,  non  carmine  matutino 
Pastorum  resonare;  adeo  undique  dirus  liabebat 
Informes  late  horror  agros  saltusque  vacantes. 
Sffipius  et  longe  detorquens  na\4ta  proram 
Monstrabat  digito  littus,  saevseque  revolvens 
Funera  narrabat  noctis,  veteremque  ruinam. 
Montis  adhuc  facies  manet  hirta  atque  aspera 
saxis  : 
Sed  furor  extinctus  jamdudum,  et  fiamma  quievit, 
Quae  nascenti  aderat ;  seu  forte  bituminis  atri 
Defluxere  olim  ri\i,  atque  effoeta  lacuna 
Pabula  sufficere  ardori,  viresque  recusat ; 
Sive  in  visceribus  meditans  incendia  jam  nunc 
(Horrendiim)  arcanis  glomerat  genti  esse  futurse 
Exitio,  sparsos  tacitusque  recolligit  ignes. 


108  A  FAREWELL   TO  FLORENCE. 

Raro  per  clivos  haud  secius  ordlne  vidi 
Canescentem  oleam :  longum  post  tempus  amicti 
Vite  virent  tumuli ;  patriainque  revisere  gaudens 
Bacchus  in  assuetis  tenerum  caput  exerit  arvis 
Vix  tandem,  infidoque  audet  se  credere  coelo. 


A  FAREWELL   TO    FLORENCE. 


*   *    y'^ 


H  Faesulas  amoena 
Frigoribus  juga,  nee  nimiiim  spirantibus 


Alma  quibus  Tusci  Pallas  decus  Apennini 
Esse  dedit,  glaucaque  sua  canescere  sylva ! 
Non  ego  vos  posthac  Arni  de  valle  videbo 
Porticibus  circum,  et  candenti  cincta  coronS, 
Villarum  longe  nitido  consurgere  dorso, 
Antiquamve  ^dem,  et  veteres  praeferre  Cupres- 

sus 
Mirabor,  tectisque  super  pendentia  tecta. 


(f^^ 


IMITA  TION  OF  AN  ITALIAN  S  ONNE T.    109 


IMITATION   OF   AN   ITALIAN    SONNET 

OF    SIGXIOK    ABBATE    BUOXDELMOXTE. 

S  PES  SO  Amor  sotto  la  forma 
D'  amista  ride,  e  s'  asconde : 
Poi  si  mischia,  e  si  eonfonde 
Con  lo  sdegno,  e  col  rancor. 
In  Pietade  ei  si  trasforma ; 
Par  trastullo,  e  par  dispetto ; 
Ma  nel  suo  diverso  aspetto 
Sempr'  egli,  e  1'  istesso  Amor. 

LusiT  amicitise  interdmn  velatus  amictu, 
Et  bene  composita  veste  fefellit  Amor. 

Mox  iraj  assumpsit  cultus,  faciemqiie  minantem, 
Inque  odium  versus,  versus  et  in  lacrymas  : 

Ludentem  fiige,  nee  lacrymanti,  aut  crede  furenti ; 
Idem  est  dissimili  semper  in  ore  Deus. 


!10  ALCAIC   ODE. 


ALCAIC  ODE, 


WRITTEN  I.N  THE  ALBUM   OF  THE  GRANDE  CHA  I 
IN    DAUPHINY,    AUGUST,     1741. 


OH  Tu,  severi  Religio  loci, 
Quocunque  gaudes  nomine  (non  (eve 
Nativa  nam  certe  fluenta 

Numen  habet,  veteresque  sylvas ; 
Praesentiorem  et  conspicimus  Deum 
Per  invias  rupes,  fera  per  juga, 
Clivosque  prseruptos,  sonantes 
Liter  aquas,  nemormnque  nocteiH  \ 
Quam  si  repostus  sub  trabe  citrea 
Fulgeret  auro,  et  Piiidiaca  manu) 
Salve  vocanti  rite,  fesso  et 
Da  placidam  juveni  quietem. 
Quod  si  invidendis  sedibus,  et  frui 
Fortuna  sacra  lege  silentii 

Vetat  volentem,  me  resorbens 
In  medios  violenta  fluctus  : 
Saltern  remoto  des.  Pater,  angulo 
Horas  senectje  ducere  liberas ; 
Tutumque  vulgari  tumultu 
Surripias,  hominumque  euriso 


PART   OF  AN  HEROIC  EPISTLE.       \u. 


PART    OF   AN   HEROIC   EPISTLE 

FROM    SOPHONISBA    TO    JIASIMSSA. 

T^  GREGIUM   accipio  promissi  Munus  amoris, 
-k-—'  Inque  manu  mortem,  jam  fi-uitm-a,  fero  : 
Atqiie  iitinam  citius  mandasses,  luce  vel  una  ; 

Transieram  Stygios  non  inhonesta  lacus. 
Tictoris  nee  passa  toros,  nova  nupta,  mariti, 

Nee  fueram  fastus,  Roma  superba,  tuos. 
Scilicet  haBc  partem  tibi,  Masinissa,  triumphi 

Detractam,  hasc  pompas  jura  minora  suse 
Imputet,  atque  uxor  quod  non  tua  pressa  catenis, 

Objecta  et  S£eva3  plausibus  orbis  eo  : 
Quin  tu  pro  tantis  cepisti  prasmia  factis, 

Mignum  Romanae  pignus  amicitise  ! 
Scipiadae  excuses,  oro,  si,  tardius  utar 

Munere.     Non  nimiiim  vivere,  crede,  velim. 
P-irva  mora  est,  breve  sed  tempus  mea  fama  re- 
quirit : 

Detlnet  hsec  animam  cura  suprema  meam. 
Quae  patriae  prodesse  meae  Regina  ferebar. 

Inter  EHsteas  gloria  prima  nurus, 
Xe  videar  flammas  nimis  indulsisse  secundae, 

Vei  nimis  hostiles  extimuisse  manus. 
Fortr.nam  atque  annos  liceat  revocare  priores, 

Gaudiaque  hcu  I  quantis  nostra  repensa  mails. 
Primitiasne  tuas  meministi  atque  arma  Syphacis 

Fusa,  et  per  Tyrias  ducta   tropLsea  vias  ? 


112       PART   OF  AN  HEROIC  EPISTLE. 

(Laudis  at  antiquae  forsan  meminisse  pigebit, 

Quodque  decus  quondam  causa  ruboris  erit.) 
Tenipus  ego  certe  raemini,  felicia  Poenis 

Quo  te  non  pudult  solvere  vota  dels ; 
Moeniaque  intrantem  vidi :  longo  agmine  duxit 

Turba  salutantum,  purpurelque  patres. 
Foeininea  ante  omnes  longe  admiratur  euntem 

Ilaeret  et  aspectu  tota  caterva  tuo. 
Jam  flexi,  regale  decus,  per  coUa  capilli, 

Jam  decet  ardenti  fuscus  in  ore  color  ' 
Commendat  frontls  generosa  modestia  formam, 

Seque  cupit  laudi  surripuisse  sua3. 
Prima  genas  tenui  signat  vix  flore  juventas, 

Et  dextrae  soli  credimus  esse  virum. 
Dum  faciles  gradiens  oculos  per  singula  jactas, 

(Seu  rexit  casus  lumina,  sive  Venus) 
In  me  (vel  certe  visum  est)  conversa  morari 

Sensi ;  virgineus  perculit  ora  pudor. 
Nescio  quid  vultum  molle  spirare  tuendo, 

Credideramque  tuos  lentius  ire  pedes. 
Quffirebam,  juxta  asqualis  si  dignior  esset, 

Quse  poterat  visus  detinuisse  tuos : 
Nulla  fuit  circum  asqualis  quae  dignior  esset, 

Asseruitque  decus  conscia  forma  suum. 
Pompae  finis  erat.     Tota  vix  nocte  quievi, 

Sin  premat  invitae  lumina  victa  sopor, 
Somnus  habet  pompas,  eademque  recursat  imago 

Atque  iterura  hesterno  munere  victor  ades. 

#  *  *  ^  4|t 


DE  PRJNCIPIIS  COGITANDI.  113 


DIDACTIC  POEM  UNFINISHED  : 
ENTITLED 

DE  PRINCIPIIS   COGITANDI. 

LIBER  PRIMUS.      AD   FAVOMUM. 

UNDE  Animus  scire  incipiat ;  quibus  inchoet  orsa 
Principiis  seriem  rerum,  tenuemque  catenam 
Mnemosyne  :  Ratio  unde  rudi  sub  pectore  tardum 
Augeat  imperium ;  et  primum  mortalibus  aegris 
Ira,  Dolor,  Metus,  et  Cur^e  nascantur  inanes, 
Hinc  canere  aggredior.    Nee  dedignare  canentem, 
O  '^ecus  !     Angliacas  eerte  O  lux  altera  gentis  ! 
Si  qua  primus  iter  monstras,  vestigia  conor 
Signare  incerta,  tremulaque  insistere  planta. 
Quin  potius  due  ipse  (potes  namque  omnia)  sanc- 
tum 
Ad  liraen  (si  rite  adeo,  si  pectore  puro,) 
Obscuras  reserans  Xaturas  ingentia  claustra. 
Tu  caecas  rerum  causas,  fontemque  severum 
Pande,  Pater ;  tibi  enim,  tlbi,  veri  magne  Sacerdos, 
Corda    patent    Lominum,   atque    altae    penetralia 
Mentis. 
Tuque  aures  adhibe  vacuas,  facilesque,  Favoni, 
(Quod  tibi  crescit  opus)  simplex  nee  despice  car- 
men, 
Nee  vatem  :  non  ilia  leves  primordia  motus, 


114  DE  PRINCIPIIS    COGirANDI. 

Quanquam  parva,  daljunt.     La;tmii    vel   annbile 

quicquid 
Usquam  oritur,  traliit  liinc  ortum  ;  nee  suri;it  ad 

auras, 
Quin  ea  consplrent  siraul,  evcntusque  secundsnt. 
Hinc  varias  vitai  artes,  ac  moUlor  usus, 
Dulce  et  amicitlse  vinclum:  S:ipientia  dia 
Hinc  roseum  accendit  lumen,  vultuque  sereno 
Huuianas  aperit  mentes,  nova  gaudia  uionstrans, 
Deformesque  fugat  curas,  vanosque  ti mores : 
Scilicet  et  rerum  crescit  pulcherrima  Yirtus. 
Ilia  etiam,  quse  te  (miriim)  noctesque  diesque 
Assidue  fovet  inspirans,  linguamque  sequentem 
Temperat  in  numeros,  atque  boras  mulcet  inertes ; 
Aurea  non  alia  se  jactat  origine  Musa. 

Principio,  ut  magnum  foedus  Natura  creatrix 
Finuavit,  tardis  jussitque  inolescere  membris 
Sublimes  animas ;  tenebroso  in  careere  partem 
Noiuit  aetheream  iongo  torpere  veterno  : 
Nee  per  se  proprium  passa  exercere  vlgorem  est, 
Ne  sociae  molis  conjunctos  sperneret  artus, 
Ponderis  oblita,  et  coelestis  conscia  flammse. 
Idcirco  innumero  ductu  tremere  undique  fibras 
Nervoriun  instituit :  tum  toto  corpore  miscens 
Implicuit  late  ramos,  et  sensile  textum, 
luiplevitque  humore  suo  (seu  lympha  vocanda, 
Sive  aura  est)  tenuis  certe,  atc[ue  ievissima  quae- 

dam 
Yis  vei*satur  agens,  parvosque  infusa  canales 
Perfluit ;  assidue  externis  qu£e  concita  plagis, 
Mobilis,  incussique  fidelis  nuntia  motus, 
Hinc  inde  accensa  contage  relabitur  usque 
Ad  superas  hominis  sedes,  arcemque  cerebri. 


DE  PRINCIPIIS    COG  IT  AND  I.  U7> 

Namque  illic  posuit  solium,  et  sua  templa  sacravit 
Mens  animi :   banc  circum   coeunt,  densotjue  fe- 

inintur 
Agmiiie  notitia3,  simulacraque  tenuia  rerum  : 
Ecce  autem  naturae  ingens  aperitur  imago 
Immensae,  variique  patent  commercia  mundi. 

Ac  uti  longinquis  descendunt  montibus  amnes 
Velivolus  Tcimisis,  flaventisque  Indus  arenas 
Eupliratesque,  Tagusque,  et  opimo  flamine  Ganges, 
Undas  quisque  suas  volvens,  cursuque  sonoro 
In  mare  prorumpunt :  hos  magno  aeclinis  in  antro 
Excipit  Oceanus,  natorumque  ordine  longo 
Dona  recognoscit  venientum,  ultroque  serenat 
Cseruleam  faciem,  et  diffuso  marmore  ridet. 
Hand  aliter  species  properant  se  inferre  novelise 
Certatim  menti,  atque  aditus  quino  agmine  coni- 
plent. 
Primas  tactus  agit  partes,  prlmusque  minutae 
Laxat  iter  c^cum  turbte,  recipitque  ruentem. 
Non  idem  liuic  modus  est,  qui  fratribus :  amplius 

ille 
Imperium  affectat  senior,  penitusque  medullis 
Visceribusque  habitat  totis,  pellisque  recentem 
Funditur  iu  telam,  et  late  per  stamina  vivit. 
Xecdum  etiam  matris  puer  eluctatus  ab  alvo 
Multiplices  solvit  tunicas,  et  vincula  rupit ; 
Sopitus  molli  somno,  tepidoque  liquore 
Circumfusus  adliuc  :  tactus  tamen  aura  laco^sit 
Jamdudum  levior  sensus,  animamque  reclusit. 
Idque  magis  simul,  ac  solitum  blandumque  calo- 

rem 
Frigore  mutavit  coeli,  quod  verberat  acri 
Impete  inassuetos  artus  :  turn  ssevior  adstat 


116  DE  PRINCIPIIS   COGITANDI. 

Humanagque  comes  vitae  Dolor  excipit ;  ille 
Cunctantem  frustrk  et  tremulo  multa  ore  queren- 

tem 
Corripit  invadens,  ferreisque  amplectltur  ulnis. 
Turn  species  primum  patefacta  est  Candida  Lucis 
(Usque  vices  adeo  Natiira  bonique,  malique, 
Exaequat,  justaque  manu  sua  danma  repeudit) 
Turn  primiim,  ignotosque  bibunt  nova  lumina  soles. 

Carmine  quo,  Dea,  te  dicam,  gratissima  coeli 
Progenies,  ortumque  tuum  ;  gemmantia  rore 
Ut  per  prata  levi  lustras,  et  floribus  halans 
Parpureum  Veris  gremium,  scenamque  virentem 
Pingis,  et  umbriferos  colles,  et  caerula  regna  ? 
Gratia  te,  Yenerisque  Lepos,  et  mille  Colorum, 
Formarumque  chorus  sequitur,  motusque  decentes. 
At  caput  invisum  Stygiis  Nox  atra  tenebris 
Abdidit,  horrendjeque  simul  Formidinis  ora, 
Pervigilesque  testus  Curarum,  atque  anxius  Angor. 
Undique  Igetitia  florent  mortalia  corda, 
Purus  et  arridet  largis  fulgoribus  ^tlier. 

Omnia  nee  tu  ideo  invalidae  se  pandere  Menti 
(Quippe  nimis  teneros  posset  vis  tanta  diei 
Perturbare,  et  inexpertos  confundere  visus) 
Nee  capere  infantes  animos,  neu  cernere  credas 
Tarn  variam  molem,  et  mirae  spectacula  lucis : 
Nescio  qua  tamen  base  oculos  dulcedine  parvos 
Splendida  percussit  novitas,  traxitque  sequentes  ; 
Nonne  videmus  enim,  latis  inserta  fenestris 
Slcubi  se  Phoebi  dispergant  aurea  tela, 
Sive  lucernarum  rutilus  colluxerit  ardor, 
Extemplo  hiic  obverti  aciem,  quas  fixa  repertos 
Haurit  inexpletum  radios,  fruiturque  tuendo  ? 

Altior  huic  vero  sensu,  majorque  videtur 


DE  PRINCIPIIS    COGITANDL  H'/ 

Addita,  Jiidicioque  arete  connexa  potestas, 
Quod  simul  atque  aetas  volventibus  auxerit  aniiis, 
Hific  simul,  assiduo  depascens  omnia  visu, 
Perspiciet,  vis  quanta  loci,  quid  polleat  ordo, 
Juncturae  quis  honos,  ut  res  accendere  rebus 
Lumina  conjurant  inter  se,  et  mutua  fulgent. 

Nee  minor  in  geminis  viget  auribus  insita  virtus, 
Nee  tantum  in  curvis  quae  pervigil  excubet  antris 
Hinc  atque  hine  (ubi  Vox  tremefecerit  ostia  pulsii 
Aeriis  invecta  rotis)  longeque  recurset : 
Scilicet  Eloqiuo  haec  sonitus,  hac  fulminis  alas, 
Et  mulcere  dedit  dietis  et  tollere  corda, 
Verbaque  metiri  numeris,  versuque  ligare 
Repperit,  et  quicquid  discant  Libethrides  undse, 
Calliope  quoties,  quoties  Pater  ipse  canendi 
Evolvat  licj[uidum  carmen,  calamove  loquenti 
Inspiret  dulces  animas,  digitisque  figuret. 

At  medias  fauces,  et  linguae  humentia  templa 
Gustus  habet,  cpa  se  insinuet  jucunda  saponmi 
Luxuries,  dona  Autumni,  Baccliique  voluptas. 

Naribus  interea  consedit  odora  hominum  vis, 
Docta  leves  captare  auras,  Pancliaia  quales 
Vere  novo  exhalat.  Florae ve  quod  oscula  fi-agrant, 
Roscida,  cum  Zepliyri  furtim  sub  vesperis  hora 
Respondet  votis,  molleuKjue  aspirat  amorem. 

Tot  portas  alt*  capitis  circumdedit  arci 
Alma  Parens,  sens  usque  vias  per  membra  reclusit ; 
Haud  solas  :  namque  intiis  agit  vivata  facultas. 
Qua  ssse  explorat,  contemplatusque  repente 
Ipse  su-:is  animus  vires,  momentaque  cernit. 
Quid  velit,  aut  possit,  cupiat,  fugiatve,  vicissim 
Percii)it  imperio  gaudens  ;  neque  corpora  fallunt 
Morigera  ad  celeres  actus,  ac  numina  mentis. 


118  DE  PRINCiPIlS    COG  I  TAN  DI. 

Qualis  Hamadryaduin  quondam  si  forte  soromm 
Una,  novos  peragrans  saltus,  et  devia  rura ; 
(Atque  illam  in  viridi  suadet  procumbere  ripa 
Foniis  pura  qiiies,  et  opaci  frigoris  umbra) 
Dum  prona  in  latices  speculi  de  margine  pendet, 
Mirata  est  subitam  veuienti  occurrere  Nympham : 
Mox  eosdem,  quos  ipsa,  artus,  eadem  ora  f^erentem 
Unk  inferre  gradus,  unk  succedere  sylva? 
Aspicit  alludens ;  seseque  agnoscit  in  undis. 
Sic  sensu  interno  rerum  simulacra  suarum 
Mens  ciet,  et  proprios  observat  conscia  vultus. 
Nee  vero  simplex  ratio,  aut  jus  omnibus  unum 
Constat  imaginibus.     Sunt  qua?  bina  ostia  norunt ; 
Use  privos  servant  aditus ;  sine  legibus  illae 
Passim,  qua  data  porta,  ruunt,  animoque  propin- 

quant. 
Respice,  cui  a  cunis  tristes  extinxit  ocellos, 
Saeva  et  in  eternas  mersit  natura  tenebras  : 
Uli  ignota  dies  lucet,  vernusque  colorum 
OfFasus  nitor  est,  et  vivge  gratia  formae. 
Corporis  at  filum,  et  motus,  spatiumque,  locique 
Inter  valla  datur  certo  dignoscere  tactu  : 
Quandoquidem  his  iter  ambiguum  est,  et  janua  du- 
plex, 
Exclusaeque  oculis  species  irrumpere  tendunt 
Per  digitos.     Atqui  solis  concessa  potestas 
Luminibus  blandae  est  radios  imraittere  lucis. 

Undiqae  proporro  socils,  quacunque  patesc!t 
NotitiaB  campus,  mistae  lasciva  feruntur 
Turba  voluptatis  comites,  formasque  dolorum 
Terriblles  visu,  et  porta  glomerantur  in  omni. 
Nee  vario  minus  introitu  magnum  ingruit  lUud, 
Quo  facere  et  fungi,  quo  res  existere  circuui 


DE  PRINCIPJIS    COGITAXDI. 


119 


Quamque  sibi  proprio  cum  corpore  sclmus,  et  ire 
Ordine,  perpetuoque  per  aevum  flumine  labi. 

Nunc  age  quo  valeat  pacto,  qua  sensilis  arte 
AiFectare  viam,  atque  animi  tentare  latebras 
Materies  (dictis  aures  adverte  faventes) 
Exsequar.     Imprimis  spatii  quam  multa  per  ae(iuor 
Millia  multigenis  pandant  se  corpora  secHs, 
Expende.     Haud  unum  invenies,  quod  mente  li- 

cebit 
Amplecti,  nedum  propriiis  deprendere  sensu, 
Molis  egens  certae,  aut  solido  sine  robore,  cujus 
Denique  mobilitas  linquit,  texturave  partes, 
Ulla  nee  orarum  circumcsesura  coercefe. 
Haec  conjuncta  adeo  tota  compage  fatetur 
Mundus,  et  extremo  clamant  in  limine  rerum, 
(Si  rebus  datur  extremum)  primordia.     Firmat 
Hjbc  eadem  tactus  (tactum  quis  dicere  falsum 
Audeat  ?)  haec  oculi  nee  lucidus  arguit  orbis. 

Inde  potestatum  ena3(!i  densissima  proles  : 
Nam  quodcunque  ferit  visum,  tangive  laborat, 
Quicquid  nare  bibis,  vel  concava  concipit  auris, 
Quicquid  lingua  sapit,  credas  hoc  omne,  necesse  est 
Ponderibus,  textu,  discur:>u,  mole,  figura 
Particulas  prastare  leves,  et  semina  rerum. 
Nunc  oculos  igitur  pascunt,  et  luce  ministry 
Fulgere  cuncta  vides,  spargique  coloribus  orbera, 
Dum  de  sole  trabunt  alias,  aliasque  superne 
Detorquent,  retroque  docent  se  vertere  flammas. 
Nunc  trepido  inter  se  fervent  corpuscula  pulsu, 
Ut  tremor  aethera  per  magnum,  lateque  natantes 
Aurarum  fluctus  avidi  vibrantia  claustra 
Auditus  queat  allabi,  sonitumque  propaget. 
Cominiis  interdum  non  ullo  interprete  per  se 


120  DE  PRINCIPIIS   COGITANDL 

Nervorum  invadunt  teneras  quatientia  fibras, 
Sensiferumque  urgent  ultro  per  viscera  motum. 


LIBER   QUARTUS. 

Hactenus  baud  segnis  Naturse  arcana  retexi 
Musarum  interpres,  primusque  Britanna  per  arva 
Romano  liquidum  deduxi  flumine  rivum. 
Cum  Tu  opere  in  medio,  spes  tanti  et  causa  labo- 

ris, 
Linquis,  et  aeternam  fati  te  condis  in  umbram  ! 
Vidi  egomet  duro  graviter  concussa  dolore 
Pectora,  in  alterius  non  unquam  lenta  dolorcm ; 
Et  languere  oculos  vidi,  et  pallescere  amantem 
Vultum,  quo  nunquam  Pietas  nisi  rara,  Fidesque, 
Altus  amor  Yeri,  et  purum  spirabat  Honestum. 
Visa  tamen  tardi  demum  inclementia  morbi 
Cessare  est,  reducemque  iterum  roseo  ore  Salutem 
Speravi,  atque  una  tecum,  dilecte  Favoni ! 
Credulus  heu  longos,  ut  quondam,  fallere  Soles  : 
Heu  spes  nequicquam  dulces,  atque  irrita  vota  ! 
Heu  maestos  Soles,  sine  te  quos  ducere  flendo 
Per  desideria,  et  questus  jam  cogor  inanes  ! 

At  Tu,  sancta  anima,  et  nostri  non  indiga  luctiis, 
Stellanti  templo,  sincerique  aetheris  igne, 
Unde  orta  es,  fruere ;  atque  6  si  secura,  nee  ultra 
Mortalis,  notos  olim  miserata  labores 
Respectes,  tenuesque  vacet  cognoscere  curas  ; 
Humanam  si  forte  alta  de  sede  procellam 
Contemplere,  metus,  stimulosque  cupidinis  acres, 
Gaudiaque  et  gemitus,  parvoque  in  corde  tumultum 


GREEK  EPIGRAM.  121 

Irarum  ingentem,  et  saevos  sub  pectore  fluctns  ; 
Respice  et  has  lacrymas,  memori  quas  ictus  amore 
Fundo  ;  quod  possum,  juxta  lugere  sepulchrum 
Dum  juvat,  et  mutae  vana  haec  jactare  favillge. 


GREEK  EPIGRAM. 
[See  Mason's  Memoirs,  Vol.  III.  p.  45.] 

'A^6/Aevo?  iTokvQyipov  enri^oKov  akao^  ava.(T<Ta<;, 
Ta?  Setm?  Te/aeVrj  AetTre  Kvvayh  6ea<;, 

'M.ovvoL  ap'  ev6a  KWUiV  ^aOeuiv  Kkayyevcnv  vKayfioi, 
'A^rap^eis  Nv/a(^av  aypoTepdv  /ceAdSw. 


122  EXTRACTS. 


EXTRACTS. 


PETRARCA  PART  I.  SONETTO  170. 

"  Lasso  ch'  i'  ardo,  ed  altri  non  mel  crede,"  &c. 


UROR,  io ;  veros  at  nemo  credidit  ignes  : 
Quin  credunt  omnes ;  dura  sed  ilia  negat, 
Ilia  negat,  soli  volumus  cui  posse  probare ; 

Quin  videt,  et  visos  improba  dissimulat. 
Ah,  durissima  mi,  sed  et,  ah,  pulcherrima  rerum ! 

Nonne  animam  in  misera,  Cynthia,  fronte  vides  ? 
Omnibus  ilia  pi  a  est ;  et,  si  non  fata  vetassent, 

Tarn  longas  mentem  flecteret  ad  laciymas. 
Sed  tamen  has  laerymas,  hunc  tu,  quem  spreveris, 
ignem, 

Carminaque  auctori  non  bene  culta  suo, 
Turba  futurorum  non  ignorabit  amantum : 

Nos  duo,  cumque  erimus  parvus  uterque  cinis, 
Jamque  faces,  eheu  !  oculorum,  et  frigida  lingua, 

Has  sine  luce  jacent,  immemor  ilia  loqui ; 
Infelix  musa  seternos  spirabit  amores, 

Ardebitque  urna  multa  favilla  mea. 


EXTRACTS.  123 


FROM   THE   ANTHOLOGIA   GR^CA. 

EDIT.   HEN.    STEPH.    1566. 
IN   BACCH^  FURENTIS   STATUAM. 

CREDITE,  non  viva  est  Maenas ;    non  spiral 
imago  : 
Artificis  rabiem  miscuit  aere  manus. 


IN   ALEXANDRUM,   ^RE    EFFICTUM. 

Quantum  audet,  Lysippe,  manus  tua !  surgit  in 
sere 

Spiritus,  atque  oculis  bellicus  ignis  adest : 
Spectate  lios  vultiis,  miserisque  ignoscite  Persis : 

Quid  mirum,  imbelles  si  leo  sparsit  oves  ? 


IN  MEDE.E  IMAGINEM,   NOBILE  TIMOMACHI  OPUS. 

En  ubi  IMedeae  varius  dolor  SBstuat  ore, 

Jamque  animum  nati,  jamque  maritus,  habcnt ! 

Succenset,  miseret,  medio  exardescit  amore, 
Dum  furor  inque  oculo  gutta  minante  tremit. 

Cernis   adliuc   dubiam ;   quid   enim  ?   licet   impia 
matris 
Colchidos,  at  non  sit  dextera  Timomachi. 


124  EXTRACTS. 


IN   IflOBES   STATUAM. 


Fecerat  e  viva  lapidem  me  Jupiter ;  at  me 
Praxiteles  vlvam  reddidit  e  lapide. 


A   NYMPH    OFFERING    A    STATUE   OF    HERSELF   TO   VENUS. 

Te  tibi,  sancta,  fero  nudam  ;  formosius  ipsa 
Cum  tibi,  quod  ferrem,  te,  Dea,  nil  liabui. 


IN   AMOREM    DORMIENTEM. 

DocTE  puer  vigiles  mortalibus  addere  curas, 
Anne  potest  in  te  somnus  habere  locum  V 

Laxi  juxta  arcus,  et  fax  suspensa  quiescit, 

Dormit  et  in  pharetra  clausa  sagitta  sua ; 

Longe  mater  abest ;  longe  Cythereia  turba  : 
Veriim  ausint  alii  te  prope  ferre  pedem, 

Non  ego  :  nam  metui  valde,  milii,  perfide,  quiddam 
Forsan  et  in  somnis  ne  meditere  mali. 


FROM   A   FRAGMENT   OF   PLATO. 

It  UK  in  Idalios  tractus,  felicia  regna, 

Fundit  ubi  densam  myrtea  sylva  comam, 
Tntus  Amor  teneram  visus  spirare  quietem, 

Diim  roseo  roseos  imprimit  ore  toros ; 
Subllmem  procul  a  ramis  pendere  pharetram, 

Et  de  languidula  spicula  lapsa  manu, 
Vidimus,  et  risu  molli  diducta  labella 

Murmure  quae  assiduo  pervolitabat  apis. 


EXTRACTS.  J  25 

IN   FONTEM    AQU.E   CALID.E. 

Sub  platanis  puer  Idalius  prope  fluminis  iindam 

Dormilt,  in  ripa  deposuitque  facem. 
Tempus  adest,  sociae,  Nympliarum  aiidentior  una, 

Tempus  adest,  ultra  quid  dubitamus  ?  ait. 
Ilicet  incurrit,  pestem  ut  divumque  liominumque 

Lampada  collectis  exanimaret  aquis  : 
Demens  !  nam  nequiit  s^vam  restinguere  flammam 

Nympha,  sed  ipsa  ignes  traxit,  et  inde  calet. 

Irrepsisse  suas  murem  videt  Argus  in  «des, 
Atque  ait,  heus,  a  me  nunquid,  amice,  velis  ? 

Ille  autem  ridens,  metuas  nihil,  inquit ;  apud  te, 
O  bone,  non  epulas,  hospitium  petimus. 

Haxc  tibi  Rufinus  mittit,  Rodoclea,  coronam, 
Has  tibi  decerpens  texerat  ipse  rosas ; 

Est  viola,  est  anemone,  est  suave-rubens  hyacvn- 
thus,  ^     ^ 

Mistaque  Narcisso  lutea  caltha  sue  ; 

Sume;  sed  aspieiens,  ah,  fidere  desine  forma; 
Qui  pinxit,  brevis  est,  sertaque  teque,  color. 


AD   AMOREM. 

Paulisper  vigiles,  oro,  compesce  dolores, 
Respue  nee  musas  supplicis  aure  preces ; 

Oro  brevem  lacrjmis  veniam,  requiemquc  furorl 
Ah,  ego  non  possum  vulnera  tanta  pati ! 


126  EXTRACTS. 

Intima  flamma,  vides,  miseros  depascitur  artus, 

Surgit  et  extremis  spiritus  in  labiis : 
Quod  si  tam  tenuem  cordi  est  exsolvere  -vdtain, 

Stabit  in  opprobrium  sculpta  querela  tuum. 
Juro  perque  faces  istas,  arcunique  sonantem, 

Spiculaque  hoc  unum  figere  docta  jecur; 
Heu  fuge  crudelem  puerum,  sasvasque  sagittas ! 

Huic  fliit  exitii  causa,  viator,  Amor. 


NOTES 
? 


NOTES. 


On  the  Spring. 

P.  3.     The  original  manuscript  title  given  by  Gray 
to  this  Ode  was  "  Noontide."      It  appeared  for  the 
first  time   in   Dodsley's  Collection,  Vol.  II.  p.  271, 
mider  the  title  of  "  Ode." 
On  the  Death  of  a  Favorite  Cat. 

P.  5.  On  a  favorite  cat  called  Selima,  that  fell  into 
a  China  tub  with  gold-fishes  in  it,  and  was  drowned. 
Walpole,  after  the  death  of  Gray,  placed  the  China 
vase  on  a  pedestal  at  Strawberry  Hill,  with  a  few 
lines  of  the  Ode  for  its  inscription. 
On  a  Distant  Prospect  of  Eton  College. 

P.  7.    Her  Henry's  holy  shade.']     King  Henry  the 
Sixth,  founder  of  the  College. 
The  Progress  of  Poesy. 

P.  13.  jEolian  lyre.]  Pindar  styles  his  own  po- 
etry "  .Solian." 

P.  13.     Ceres'  golden  reign.]     Fields  of  corn. 

P.  13.  0  Sovereign  of  the  willing  soul]  Power  of 
harmony  to  calm  the  turbulent  passions  of  the  soul. 
The  thoughts  are  borrowed  from  the  first  Pythian 
of  Pindar. 

P.  14.     The  Lord  of  War.]     Mars,  the  god  of  war. 

P.  14.     The  feathered  king.]     The  eagle  of  Jove. 

P.  14.  Thee  the  voice.,  the  dance,  obey.]  Power  of 
harmony  to  produce  all  the  graces  of  motion  in  the 
body. 

9 


130  NOTES. 

P.  14.  Idalia.']  The  favorite  retreat  of  Venus  in 
Cyprus. 

P.  14.     Cytherea's  day.]     The  festival  of  Venus. 

P.  14.  Man's  feeble  race  what  ills  aioait .']  To 
compensate  the  real  and  imaginary  ills  of  life,  the 
muse  was  given  to  mankind  by  the  same  Providence 
that  sends  the  day,  by  its  cheerful  presence,  to  dispel 
the  gloom  and  terrors  of  the  night. 

P.  15.  In  climes  beyond  the  solar  road.]  Extensive 
influence  of  poetic  genius  over  the  remotest  and  most 
uncivilized  nations:  its  connection  Avith  Liberty, and 
the  virtues  that  naturally  attend  on  it. 

P.  15.  Woods,  that  wave  o'er  DeljM's  steep.]  Pro- 
gress of  Poetry  from  Greece  to  Italy,  and  from  Italy 
to  England.  Chaucer  was  not  unacquainted  with  the 
writings  of  Dante  or  of  Petrarch.  The  Earl  of  Sur- 
rey and  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  had  travelled  in  Italy, 
and  formed  their  taste  there.  Spenser  imitated  the 
Italian  writers ;  Milton  improved  on  them;  but  this 
school  expired  soon  after  the  Restoration,  and  a  new 
one  arose  on  the  French  model,  which  has  subsisted 
ever  since. 

P.  16.  In  thy  green  lap  was  Nature's  darling  laid.] 
Shakespeare. 

P.  16.    Nor  second  He,  that  rode  sublime.]   Milton. 

P.  16.  The  living  throne,  the  sapphire  blaze.]  "  For 
the  spirit  of  the  living  creature  was  in  the  wheels. 
And  above  the  firmament,  that  was  over  their  heads, 
was  the  likeness  of  a  throne,  as  the  appearance  of  a 
sapphire  stone.  This  was  the  appeai-ance  of  the 
glory  of  the  Lord."     Ezek.  i.  20,  26,  28. 

P.  17.  With  necks  in  thunder  clothed.]  "  Hast  thou 
clothed  his  neck  with  thunder?  "  Job.  —  This  verse 
and  the  foregoing  are  meant  to  express  the  stately 
march  and  sounding  energy  of  Dryden's  rhymes. 

P.  17.  That  the  Theban  engle  bear.]  Pindar  com- 
pares himself  to  thiit  bird,  and  his  enemies  to  ravens 


NOTES.  131 

that  croak  and  clamor  in  vain  below,  while  it  pur- 
sues its  flight,  regardless  of  their  noise. 

The  Bard. 

P.  18.  This  Ode  is  founded  on  a  tradition  current 
in  Wales,  that  Edward  the  First,  when  he  completed 
the  conquest  of  that  country,  ordered  all  the  Bards 
that  fell  into  his  hands  to  be  put  to  death. 

P.  18.  Helm,  nor  hatiberts  twisted  mail.]  The 
hauberk  was  a  texture  of  steel  ringlets,  or  rings 
interwoven,  forming  a  coat  of  mail  that  sat  close 
to  the  body,  and  adapted  itself  to  every  motion. 

P.  18.  Snoivdon's  shaggy  side.]  Snowdon  was  a 
name  given  by  the  Saxons  to  that  mountainous 
tract  which  includes  all  the  highlands  of  Caernar- 
vonshire and  Merionethshire,  as  far  east  as  the  river 
Conway. 

P.  18.  Stout  Glo'ster.]  Gilbert  de  Clare,  sur- 
named  the  Red,  Earl  of  Gloucester  and  Hertford; 
married  at  Westminster,  May  2,  1290,  to  Joan  de 
Acres  or  Aeon  (so  called  from  having  been  born 
at  Aeon  in  the  Holy  Land),  second  daughter  of  King 
Edward.  —  He  died  1295. 

P.  18.    "  To  arms!'^  cried  Moi'timer.]     Edmond 

de  Mortimer,  Lord  of  Wigmore.     They  both  were 

Lord  Marchers,  whose  lands  lay  on  the  borders  of 

Wales,  and  probably  accompanied  the  king  in  this 

■    expedition. 

P.  19.  On  dreary  Arvon's  shore  they  lie.]  The 
shores  of  Caernarvonshire,  opposite  to  the  Isle  of 
Anglesey. 

P.  19.  Arid  weave  with  bloody  hatids  the  tissue  of  thy 
line.]  See  the  Norwegian  Ode  (The  Fatal  Sisters) 
that  follows. 

P.  20.  The  shrieks  of  death,  through  Berkley's  roof 
that  ring.]  Edward  the  Second,  cruelly  butchered 
in  Berkley  Castle. 


32  NOTES. 

P.  20.  She-wolf  of  France.]  Isabel  of  France, 
Edward  the  Second's  adulterous  queen. 

P.  20.  The  scourge  of  keav''n.]  Triumphs  of  Ed- 
ward the  Third  in  France. 

P.  20.  Low  on  his  funeral  couch  he  lies!]  Death 
of  Edward  the  Third,  abandoned  by  his  children, 
and  even  robbed  in  his  last  moments  by  his  courtiers 
and  his  mistress. 

P.  20.     Is  the  sable  warrior  fled?]     Edward  the 
.    Black  Prince,  dead  some  time  before  his  father. 

P.  20.  Fair  laughs  the  morn^  and  soft  the  zephyr 
bloics.]  Magnificence  of  Richard  the  Second's  reign. 
See  Froissart,  and  other  contemporary  writers. 

P.  21.  Fill  high  the  sjxirkling  boiol.]  Richard  the 
Second,  as  we  are  told  by  Archbishop  Scroop  and 
the  confederate  Lords  in  their  manifesto,  by  Thom- 
as of  Walsingham,  and  all  the  older  writers,  was 
starved  to  death.  The  story  of  his  assassination, 
by  Sir  Piers  of  Exton,  is  of  much  later  date. 

P,  21.  Heard  ye  the  din  of  battle  bray.]  Ruinous 
wars  of  York  and  Lancaster. 

P.  21.  Ye  towers  of  Julius,  London's  lasting  shame, 
With  many  a  foul  and  midnight  murder  fed.] 
Henry  the  Sixth,  George  Duke  of  Clarence,  Edward 
the  Fifth,  Richard  Duke  of  York,  &c.,  believed  to  be 
murdered  secretly  in  the  Tower  of  London.  The 
oldest  part  of  that  structure  is  vulgarly  attributed  to 
Julius  Cffisar. 

P.  21.  Revere  his  consorVs  faith.]  Margaret  of 
Anjou,  a  woman  of  heroic  spirit,  who  struggled  hard 
to  save  her  husband  and  her  crown. 

P.  21.    His  father's  fame.]     Henry  the  Fifth. 

P.  21.  And  spare  the  meek  usurper's  holy  head.] 
Henry  the  Sixth,  very  near  being  canonized.  The 
line  of  Lancaster  had  no  right  of  inheritance  to  the 
crown. 

P.  21.  Above,  beloio,  the  rose  of  snaio.]  The  white 
and  red  roses,  devices  of  York  and  Lancaster. 


NOTES.  133 

P,  21.  The  bristled  boar  in  infant-gore.']  The  sil- 
ver boar  was  the  badge  of  Richard  the  Third;  whence 
he  was  usually  known  in  his  own  time  by  the  name 
of  the  Boar. 

P.  21.  Half  of  thy  heart  we  consecrate.']  Eleanor 
of  Castile  died  a  ievr  years  after  the  conquest  of 
Wales.  The  heroic  proof  she  gave  of  her  affection 
for  her  lord  is  well  known.  The  monuments  of  his 
regret  and  sorrow  for  the  loss  of  her  are  still  to  be 
seen  at  Northampton,  Gaddington,  Waltham,  and 
other  places. 

P.  22.  No  more  our  long-lost  Arthur  we  bewail.]  It 
was  the  common  belief  of  the  Welsh  nation,  that 
King  Arthur  was  still  alive  in  Fairyland,  and  would 
return  again  to  reign  over  Britain. 

P.  22.  All  hail,  ye  genuine  kings,  Britannia's  issue, 
hail.']  Both  Merlin  and  Taliessin  had  prophesied 
that  the  Welsh  should  regain  their  sovereignty  over 
this  island;  which  seemed  to  be  accomplished  in  the 
house  of  Tudor. 

P.  22.  Her  lion-port,  her  awe-commanding  face.] 
Speed,  relating  an  audience  given  by  Queen  Eliza- 
beth to  Paul  Dzialinski,  ambassador  of  Poland,  says, 
"  And  thus  she,  lion-like  rising,  daunted  the  malapert 
orator  no  less  with  her  stately  port  and  majestical 
deporture,  than  with  the  tartnesse  of  her  princelie 
checkes." 

P.  22.  Hear  from  the  grave,  great  Taliessin,  hear.] 
Taliessin,  chief  of  the  bards,  flourished  in  the 
sixth  century.  His  works  are  still  prese^•^'ed,  and 
his  memory  held  in  high  veneration  among  his 
countrymen. 

P.  22.   In  buskin'' d  measures  move.]  Shakespeare. 

P.  22.   A  voice,  as  of  the  chervb-choir.]    Mii.ton. 

P.  22.  And  distant  ivarblings  lessen  on  my  ear.] 
The  succession  of  poets  after  Milton's  time. 


134  NOTES. 

Ode  for  Music. 

P.  24.  This  Ode  was  performed  in  the  Senate- 
House  at  Cambridge,  July  1,  1769,  at  the  installation 
of  his  Grace  Augustus-Henry  Fitzroy.  Duke  of  Graf- 
tou,  Chancellor  of  the  University. 

P.  25.  Great  Edward,  vnth  the  lilies  on  his  brow.] 
Edward  the  Third,  who  added  the  fleur-de-lis  of 
France  to  the  ai*ms  of  England.  He  founded  Trinity 
College. 

P.  25.  And  sad  ChatiUon,  on  her  hridxd  wi07*n.] 
Mary  de  Valentia,  Countess  of  Pembroke,  daughter 
of  Guy  de  Chatlllon,  comte  de  St.  Paul  in  France; 
of  whom  tradition  says,  that  her  husband  Audemar 
de  Valentia,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  was  slain  at  a  tourna- 
ment on  the  day  of  his  nuptials.  She  was  the  found- 
ress of  Pembroke  College  or  Hall,  under  the  name  of 
Aula  Mariae  de  Valentia. 

P.  25.  Princely  Clare.']  Elizabeth  de  Burg, 
Countess  of  Clare,  was  wife  of  John  de  Burg,  son 
and  heir  of  the  Earl  of  Ulster,  and  daughter  of  Gil- 
bert de  Clare,  Earl  of  Gloucester,  by  Joan  of  Acres, 
daughter  of  Edward  the  First.  Hence  the  poet  gives 
her  the  epithet  of  princely.  She  founded  Clare 
Hall. 

P.  25.  And  Anion's  heroine,  and  the  ^^aZe?"  rose.] 
Margaret  of  Anjou,  wife  of  Henry  the  Sixth,  found- 
ress of  Queen's  College.  The  poet  has  celebrated 
her  conjugal  fidelity  in  "  The  Bard,"  epode  2d,  line 
13th.  —  Elizabeth  Widville,  wife  of  Edward  the 
Fourth,  hence  called  the  paler  rose,  as  being  of  the 
house  of  York.  She  added  to  the  foundation  of  Mar- 
garet of  Anjou. 

P.  25.  And  either  Henry  there.]  Henry  the  Sixth 
and  Eighth.  The  former  the  founder  of  King's,  the 
latter  the  greatest  benefactor  to  Trinity  College. 

P.  26.  The  venerable  Margaret  see  !]  Countess 
of  Richmond  and  Derby;  the  motlier  of  Henry  the 


NOTES.  135 

Seventh,  foundress  of  St.  John's  and  Christ's  Col- 
leges. 

P.  26.  A  Tudor's  Jire,  a  BeauforVs  grace.']  The 
Countess  was  a  Beaufort,  and  married  to  a  Tudor: 
hence  the  application  of  this  line  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton,  who  claims  descent  from  both  these  fam- 
ilies. 

P.  27.  The  laureate  wreath,  that  Cecil  loore,  she 
brings.]  Lord  Treasurer  Burleigh  was  Chancellor 
of  the  University  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

The  Fatal  Sisters. 

P.  28.  To  be  found  in  the  Orcades  of  Thormodus 
Torfaeus;  Hafnise,  1697,  folio;  and  also  in  Bartholi- 
nus,  p.  617,  lib.  iii.  c.  1.   4to. 

Vitt  er  orpit  fyHr  valfalli,  <fc. 

In  the  eleventh  century  Sigurd,  Earl  of  the  Orkney 
Islands,  went  with  a  fleet  of  ships  and  a  consider- 
able body  of  troops  into  Ireland,  to  the  assistance  of 
Sictryg  loith  the  Silken  beard,  who  was  then  making 
war  on  his  father-in-law  Brian,  King  of  Dublin:  the 
earl  and  all  his  forces  were  cut  to  pieces,  and  Sictryg 
was  in  danger  of  a  total  defeat;  but  the  enemy  had 
a  greater  loss  by  the  death  of  Brian  their  king,  who 
fell  in  the  action.  On  Christmas-day  (the  day  of  the 
battle),  a  native  of  Caithness  in  Scotland,  of  the 
name  of  Durrad,  saw  at  a  distance  a  number  of  per- 
sons on  horseback  riding  full  speed  towards  a  hill, 
and  seeming  to  enter  into  it.  Curiosity  led  him  to 
follow  them,  till  looking  through  an  opening  of  the 
rocks,  he  saw  twelve  gigantic  figures  resembling 
women:  they  were  all  emplo3'ed  about  a  loom;  and 
as  they  wove,  they  sung  the  following  dreadful  song; 
which  when  they  had  finished,  they  tore  the  web 
into  twelve  pieces,  and  (each  taking  her  portion) 
galloped  six  to  the  north,  and  as  many  to  the  souths 


186  XOT/:S. 

These  were  the  Valkyriur,  female  divinities,  Parcae 
Militares,  servants  of  Odin  (or  Woden)  in  the  Gothic 
mythology.  Their  name  signifies  Choosers  of  (he 
slain.  They  were  mounted  on  swift  Iiorses,  with 
drawn  swords  in  their  hands;  and  in  the  throng  of 
battle  selected  such  as  ware  destined  to  slaughter, 
and  conducted  them  to  Valhalla,  the  hall  of  Odin,  or 
paradise  of  the  brave;  whe.-e  they  attended  the  ban- 
quet, and  served  the  departed  heroes  with  horns  of 
mead  and  ale:  their  numbers  are  not  agreed  upon, 
some  authors  representing  them  as  six,  some  as 
four.  ■ 

The  Descent  of  Odin. 

P.  31.  The  original  is  to  be  found  in  Saamund's 
Edda,  and  in  Bartholinus,  De  Causis  contemnendge 
Mortis;  Hafnise,  1689,  quarto,  lib.  III.  c.  ii.  p.  632. 
Upreis  Odinn  allda  gautr,  tfc. 

P.  31.  Hela's  drear  abode.]  Nifllieliar,  the  hell 
of  the  Gothic  nations,  consisted  of  nine  worlds,  to 
which  were  devoted  all  such  as  died  of  sickness,  old 
age,  or  by  any  other  means  than  in  battle.  Over  it 
presided  Hela,  the  goddess  of  death.  Hela,  in  the 
Edda,  is  described  with  a  dreadful  countenance,  and 
her  body  half  flesh-color  and  half  blue. 

P.  31.  IIi7)i  the  dog  of  darkness  spied.]  The  Edda 
gives  this  dog  the  name  of  Maiiagannar.  He  fed 
upon  the  lives  of  those  that  were  to  die. 

P.  32.  Tell  me  lohat  is  done  below.]  Odin  was 
anxious  about  the  fate  of  his  son  Balder,  who  had 
dreamed  he  was  soon  to  die.  He  w^as  killed  by 
Odin's  other  son,  Hoder,  who  was  himself  slain  by 
Vali,  the  son  of  Odin  and  Rinda,  consonant  with 
this  prophecy.     (See  the  Edda.) 

P.  33.  Once  again  viy  call  obey.]  Women  were 
looked  upon  by  the  Gothic  nations  as  having  a  pecu- 
liar insight  into  futurity;  and  some  there  were  that 


NOTES.  13J 

made  profession  of  magic  arts  and  divination.  These 
travelled  round  the  country,  and  were  received  in 
every  house  with  great  respect  and  honor.  Such  a 
woman  bore  the  name  of  Volva  Seidkona  or  Spakona. 
The  dress  of  Thorbiorga,  one  of  these  prophetesses, 
is  described  at  large  in  Eirik's  Rauda  Sogu  (Apud 
Bartholin,  lib.  i.  cap.  iv.  p.  688).  "She  had  on  a 
blue  vest  spangled  all  over  with  stones,  a  necklace 
of  glass  beads,  and  a  cap  made  of  the  skin  of  a  black 
lamb,  lined  with  white  cat-skin.  She  leaned  on  a 
staff  adorned  with  brass,  with  a  round  head  set  with 
stones;  and  was  girt  with  an  Hunlandish  belt,  at 
which  hung  her  pouch  full  of  magical  instrunients. 
Her  buskins  were  of  rough  calf-skin,  bound  on  with 
thongs  studded  with  knobs  of  brass,  and  her  gloves 
of  white  cat-skin,  the  fur  turned  inwards,"  &c  They 
were  also  called  Fiolkyng^  or  FioUcunnug,  i.  e.  Multi- 
scia;  and  Visindakona,  i,  e.  Oraculoruvn  Mulicr; 
NojTiir,  i.  e.  Parcse. 

P.  33.  IVho  ne'er  shall  comb  Ids  raven  hair.]  King 
Harold  made  (according  to  the  singular  custom  of  his 
time)  a  solemn  vow  never  to  clip  or  comb  his  hair  till 
he  should  have  extended  his  sway  over  the  whole 
country.     (Herbert's  Iceland.    Translat.  p.  39.) 

P.  34.  What  virgins  these,  in  speechless  looe]  "  It 
is  not  certain,"  says  ]\Ir.  Herbert,  "  what  Odin  means 
by  the  question  concerning  the  weeping  virgins;  but 
it  has  been  supposed  that  it  alludes  to  the  embassy 
afterwards  sent  by  Frigga  to  try  to  redeem  Balder 
from  the  inferaal  regions,  and  that  Odin  betrays  his 
divinity  by  mentioning  what  had  not  yet  happened." 
—  Iceland.    Translat.  p.  48. 

P.  34.  But  mother  of  the  giant  brood!]  Jn  the 
Latin  "mater  trium  gignntum":  probably  Anger- 
bode,  who  from  her  name  seems  to  be  "  no  prophetess 
of  good";  and  who  bore  to  Lok,  as  the  Edda  says, 
three  children,  the  wolf  Fenris,  the  great  serpent  of 


138  NOTES. 

Midgard,  and  Hela,  all  of  them  called  giants  in  that 
system  of  mythology. 

P.  34.  Till  Lok  has  burst  his  tenfold  chain.]  Lok 
is  the  evil  being,  who  continues  ia  chains  till  the 
tmlight  of  the  gods  approaches:  when  he  shall  break 
his  bonds,  the  human  race,  the  stars,  and  sun  shall 
disappear;  the  earth  sink  in  the  seas,  and  fire  con- 
sume the  skies;  even  Odin  himself  and  his  kindred 
deities  shall  perish. 

The  Triumphs  of  Owen. 

P.  35.  From  Evans,  Spec,  of  the  Welsh  Poetry, 
1764,  quarto,  p.  25,  where  is  a  prose  version  of  this 
Poem,  and  p.  127.  Owen  succeeded  his  father  Grif- 
fith app  Cynan  in  the  principality  of  N.  Wales,  a.  d. 
1137.  This  battle  was  fought  m  the  year  1157. 
Jones's  Relics,  Vol.  II.  p.  36. 

The  original  Welsh  of  this  poem  was  the  composi- 
tion of  Gwalchmai  the  son  of  Melir,  immediately 
after  Prince  Owen  Gwynedd  had  defeated  the  com- 
bined fleets  of  Iceland,  Denmark,  and  Norway,  which 
had  invaded  his  territory  on  the  coast  of  Anglesea. 

P.  35.     Gicyneth.]     North  Wales. 

P.  35.    Lochlin.]     Denmark. 

P.  35.  The  dragon-son  of  Mon a  stands.]  The  red 
dragon  is  the  device  of  Cadwallader,  which  all  his 
descendants  bore  on  their  banners. 

P.  36.  There  the  ihund'ring  strokes  begin.']  "  It 
seems,"  says  Dr.  Evans,  "  that  the  fleet  landed  in 
some  part  of  the  Firth  of  Menai,  and  that  it  was  a 
kind  of  mfxed  engagement,  some  fighting  from  the 
shore,  others  from  the  ships:  and  probably  the  great 
slaughter  was  owing  to  its  being  low  water,  and 
that  they  could  not  sail." 

The  Death  of  Hoel. 

P.  37.     Selected    from  the  Gododin  of  Aneurin, 


NOTES.  139 

styled  the  monarch  of  the  Bards.  He  flourished 
about  the  time  of  TaHessin,  a.  r>.  570.  See  Mr. 
Evans's  Specimens,  pp.  71  and  73. 

"  Aneurin  with  the  flowing  Muse,  King  of  Bards, 
brother  to  Gildas  Albanius  the  historian,  lived  under 
Mynj'ddawg  of  Edinburgh,  a  prince  of  the  North, 
whose  Eurdorchogion,  or  warriors  wearing  the  golden 
torques,  three  hundred  and  sixty-three  in  number, 
were  all  slain,  except  Aneurin  and  two  others,  in  a 
battle  with  the  Saxons  at  Cattraeth,  on  the  eastern 
coast  of  Yorkshire.  His  Gododin,  an  heroic  poem 
written  on  that  event,  is  perhaps  the  oldest  and  no- 
blest production  of  that  age."  Jones's  Relics,  Vol.  I. 
p.  17. 

P.  37.     Upon  De'iva's  squadrons  hui'l'd.]    The  king- 
dom of  Deira  included  the  counties  of  Yorkshire, 
Durham,  Lancashire,  Westmoreland,  and  Cumber- 
land. 
Have  ye  see:n,  &c. 

P.  38.  This  and  the  following  short  fragment 
ought  to  have  appeared  among  the  Posthumous 
Pieces;  but  it  was  thought  preferable  to  insert  them 
in  this  place  with  the  preceding  fragment  from  the 
Gododin. 
P>iTAPH  ON  Mks.  Jane  Clerke. 

P.  40.  This  lady,  the  wife  of  Dr.  John  Clerke, 
physician  at  Epsom,  died  April  27,  1757;  and  was 
buried  in  the  church  of  Beckeuham,  Kent. 

Epitaph  on  Sir  William  Williams. 

P.  41.  This  Epitaph  was  written  at  the  request 
of  Mr.  Frederick  Montagu,  who  intended  to  have  in- 
scribed it  on  a  monument  at  Bellisle,  at  the  siege  of 
which  Sir  W.  Williams  was  killed,  1761. 

Elegy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard. 

P.  45.  Far  from  the  madding  ci-owd.]  In  the 
first  edition,  the  following  verse  pi-eceded  this. 


140  NOTES. 

•'  Hark!  how  the  sacred  calm,  that  breathes  around, 
Bids  every  fierce  tumultuous  passion  cease, 
In  still  small  accents  whisp'ring  from  the  ground, 
A  grateful  earnest  of  eternal  peace." 

P.  46,  "  Before  the  Epitaph,  Mr.  Gray  originally- 
inserted  a  very  beautiful  stanza,  which  was  printed 
in  some  of  the  first  editions,  but  afterwards  omitted, 
because  he  thought  that  it  was  too  long  a  parenthesis 
in  this  place.  The  lines  however  are,  in  themselves, 
exquisitely  fine,  and  demand  preservation :  — 

'  There  scatter'd  oft,  the  earliest  of  the  year. 

By  hands  unseen  are  showers  of  violets  found; 
The  redbreast  loves  to  build  and  warble  there, 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground.'" 

A  LoxG  Story. 

P.  48.  Gray's  Eleg}'  in  a  Country  Churchyard, 
previous  to  its  publication,  was  handed  about  in 
manuscript;  and  had  amongst  other  admirers  the 
Lady  Cobham,  who  resided  at  the  mansion-house  at 
Stoke  Pogis.  The  performance  inducing  her  to  wish 
for  the  author's  acquaintance,  her  relation,  Miss 
Speed,  and  Lady  Schaub,  then  at  her  house,  under- 
took to  effect  it.  These  two  ladies  waited  upon  the 
author  at  his  aunt's  solitary  habitation,  where  he  at 
that  time  resided;  and  not  finding  him  at  home,  they 
left  a  card  behind  them.  Mr.  Gray,  surprised  at 
such  a  compliment,  returned  the  visit.  And  as  the 
beginning  of  this  acquaintance  bore  some  appearance 
of  romance,  he  soon  after  gave  a  humorous  account 
of  it  in  the  verses,  which  he  entitled  "  A  Long 
Story."   Printed  in  1753,  with  Mr.  Bentley's  designs. 

P.  48.  An  ancient  pile  of  building  stands.]  In 
the  sixteenth  century,  the  house  belonged  to  the 
earls  of  Huntingdon,  and  to  the  family  of  Hatton. 
On  the  death  of  Lady  Cobham,  1760,  the  estate  was 
purchased  from  her  executors  by  the  late  Hon.  Thorn- 


NOTES.  141 

as  Penn,  Lord  Proprietary  of  Pennsylvania:  his  son, 
the  present  John  Penn,  Esq.,  finding  the  interior  of 
the  ancient  mansion  in  a  state  of  considerable  decay, 
it  was  taken  down  in  the  year  1789,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  wing,  which  was  preserved,  partly  for  the 
sake  of  its  effect  as  a  ruin,  harmonizing  with  the 
churchyard,  the  poet's  house,  and  the  surrounding 
scenery. 

P.  48.  The  ceiling's  fretted  height.]  The  style  of 
building  called  Queen  Elizabeth's  is  here  admirably 
described,  both  with  regard  to  its  beauties  and  de- 
fects; the  third  and  fourth  stanzas  delineate  the  fan- 
tastic manners  of  the  time  with  equal  truth  and 
humor. 

P.  48.  My  grave  Lord-Keeper.]  Sir  Christopher 
Hatton,  promoted  by  Queen  Elizabeth  for  his  grace- 
ful person  and  fine  dancing. 

P.  48.  Brawls.]  Brawls  were  figure-dances  then 
in  fashion. 

P.  49.  The  first  came  cap-a-pie  from  France.] 
The  lady's  husband,  Sir  Luke  Schaub,  had  been  am- 
bassador at  Paris  some  years  before. 

P.  49.  The  other  Amazon.]  Miss  Harriet  Speed, 
Lady  C.'s  relation,  afterwards  married  to  the  Count 
de  Viry,  Sardinian  Envoy  at  the  court  of  London. 

P.  49.  Mr.  P—t]  The  Rev.  :Mr.  Purt,  tutor  to 
the  Duke  of  Bridgewater,  then  at  Eton  school. 

P.  50.  To  rid  the  manor  of  such  vermin.]  Henry 
the  Fourth,  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign,  issued  out 
the  following  commission  against  this  species  of  ver- 
min:—  "And  it  is  enacted,  that  no  master- ?'mer, 
minstrel.,  or  other  vagabond,  be  in  anywise  sustained 
in  the  land  of  Wales,  to  make  commoiths,  or  gather- 
ings upon  the  people  there." 

P.  50.  O'er  stiles  they  ventured.]  The  walk  from 
Stoke  old  mansion,  to  the  house  occupied  by  the 
poet's  family,  is  peculiarly  retired.    The  house  is  the 


142  NOTES. 

property  of  Captain  Salter,  and  it  has  belonged  to 
his  family  for  many  generations.  It  is  a  charming 
spot  for  a  summer  residence,  but  has  undergone  great 
alterations  and  improvements  since  Gray  gave  it  up 
in  1758. 

P.  51.  A  spell  upon  the  table.']  The  note  which 
the  ladies  left  upon  the  table. 

P.  51.  And  from  the  gallery.']  The  music-gallery 
which  overlooked  the  hall. 

P.  51.     Tyache.']     The  housekeeper. 

P.  52.     SquU).]     Groom  of  the  chamber. 

P.  62.     Groom  ]     The  steward. 

P.  52.  Macleane.]  A  famous  highwayman, 
hanged  the  week  before. 

P.  53.  See  a  Sequel  to  the  Long  Story,  in  Hake- 
will's  History  of  Windsor,  by  John  Penn,  Esq.,  and  a 
further  sequel  to  that,  by  the  late  laureate,  H.  J. 
Pye,  Esq. 

Ode  on  tpie  Pleasure  arising  from  Vicissitude. 
P.  57.     Left  unfinished  by  Gray.     With  additions 
by  Mason,  distinguished  by  inverted  commas. 

Translation  of  a  Passage  from  Statius. 

P.  61.  This  translation,  which  Gray  sent  to  West, 
consisted  of  about  a  hundred  and  ten  lines.  Mr.  Ma- 
son selected  twenty-seven  lines,  which  he  published, 
as  Gray's  first  attempt  in  English  verse. 

The  Fragment  of  a  Tragedy. 

P.  63.  "  The  Britannicus  of  Racine,  I  know,  was 
one  of  Gray's  most  favorite  plays;  and  the  admirable 
manner  in  which  I  have  heard  him  say  that  he  saw 
it  represented  at  Paris  seems  to  have  led  him  to 
choose  the  death  of  Agrippina  for  his  first  and  only 
effort  in  the  drama.  The  execution  of  it  also,  as  far 
as  it  goes,  is  so  very  much  in  Racine's  taste,  that  I 
suspect,  if  that  great  poet  had  been  born  an  English- 


NOTES.  143 

man,  he  would  have  written  precisely  in  the  same 
style  and  manner.  However,  as  there  is  at  present 
in  this  nation  a  general  prejudice  against  declamatory 
plays,  I  agree  with  a  learned  friend,  who  perused  the 
manuscript,  that  this  fragment  will  be  little  relished 
by  the  many;  yet  the  admirable  strokes  of  nature 
and  character  with  which  it  abounds,  and  the  ma- 
jesty of  its  diction,  prevent  me  from  withholding 
from  the  few,  who  I  expect  will  relish  it,  so  great 
a  curiosity  (to  call  it  nothing  more)  as  part  of  a 
tragedy  written  by  Gray.  These  persons  well 
know  that,  till  style  and  sentiment  be  a  little  more 
regarded,  mere  action  and  passion  will  never  secure 
reputation  to  the  author,  whatever  they  may  do  to 
the  actor.  It  is  the  business  of  the  one  '  to  strut  and 
fret  his  hour  upon  the  stage  ' ;  and  if  he  frets  and 
struts  enough,  he  is  sure  to  find  his  reward  in  the 
plaudit  of  an  upper  gallery;  but  the  other  ought  to 
have  some  regard  to  the  cooler  judgment  of  the 
closet:  for  I  will  be  bold  to  say,  that  if  Shakespeare 
himself  had  not  written  a  multitude  of  passages 
which  please  there  as  much  as  they  do  on  the  stage, 
his  reputation  would  not  stand  so  universally  high  as 
it  does  at  present.  Many  of  these  passages,  to  the 
shame  of  our  theatrical  taste,  are  omitted  constantly 
in  the  representation:  but  I  say  not  this  from  convic- 
tion that  the  mode  of  writing  which  Gray  pursued 
is  the  best  for  dramatic  purposes.  I  think  myself, 
what  I  have  asserted  elsewhere,  that  a  medium  be- 
tween the  French  and  English  taste  would  be  prefer- 
able to  either;  and  yet  this  medium,  if  hit  with  the 
greatest  nicety,  would  fail  of  success  on  our  theatre, 
and  that  for  a  very  obvious  reason.  Actors  (I  speak 
of  the  troop  collectively)  must  all  learn  to  speak  as 
well  as  act,  in  order  to  do  justice  to  such  a  drama. 

"  But  let  me  hasten  to  give  the  reader  what  little 
insight  I  can  into  Gray's  plan,  as  I  find  and  select  it 
from  two  detached  papers. 


144  NOTES. 

"  AGRIPPINA,  A  TRAGEDY. 

"  The  argument  drawn  out  by  him,  in  these  two 
papers,  under  the  idea  of  a  plot  and  under-plot,  I 
shall  here  unite;  as  it  will  tend  to  show  that  the 
action  itself  was  possessed  of  sufficient  xinity. 

"  The  drama  opens  with  the  indignation  of  Agrip- 
pina,  at  receiving  her  son's  orders  from  Anicetus  to 
remove  from  Bai^,  and  to  have  her  guard  taken  from 
her.  At  this  time  Otho,  having  conveyed  Poppaea 
from  the  house  of  her  husband  Rufus  Crispinus, 
brings  her  to  Baife,  where  he  means  to  conceal  her 
among  the  crowd;  01%  if  his  fraud  is  discovered,  to 
have  recourse  to  the  Emperor's  authority;  but,  know- 
ing the  lawless  temper  of  Xero,  he  determines  not  to 
have  recourse  to  that  expedient  but  on  the  utmost 
necessity.  In  the  mean  time  he  commits  her  to  the 
care  of  Anicetus,  whom  he  takes  to  be  his  friend, 
and  in  whose  age  he  thinks  he  may  safely  confide. 
Nero  is  not  yet  come  to  Baiae:  but  Seneca,  whom  he 
sends  before  him,  informs  Agrippina  of  the  accusa- 
tion concerning  Rubellius  Plancus,  and  desires  her  to 
clear  herself,  which  she  does  briefly  ;  but  demands 
to  see  her  son,  Avho,  on  his  arrival,  acquits  her  of  all 
suspicion,  and  restores  her  to  her  honors.  In  the 
mean  while,  Anicetus,  to  whose  care  Poppjea  had 
been  intrusted  by  Otho,  contrives  the  following  plot 
to  ruin  Agrippina:  he  betrays  his  trust  to  Otho,  and 
brings  Nero,  as  it  were  by  chance,  to  the  sight  of  the 
beautiful  Poppsea;  the  Emperor  is  immediately 
struck  with  her  charms,  and  she,  by  a  feigned  resist- 
ance, increases  his  passion:  though,  in  reality,  she  is 
from  the  first  dazzled  with  the  prospect  of  empire, 
and  forgets  Otho:  she  therefore  joins  with  Anicetus 
in  his  design  of  ruining  Agrippina,  soon  perceiving 
that  it  will  be  for  her  interest.  Otho  hearing  that  the 
Emperor  had  seen  Poppasa,  is  much   enraged;   but 


NOTES.  145 

not  knowing  that  this  interview  was  obtained  through 
the  treachery  of  Anicetus,  is  readily  persuaded  by 
him  to  see  Agrippina  in  secret,  and  acquaint  her  with 
his  fears  that  her  son  Nero  would  marry  Poppaea. 
Agrippina,  to  support  her  own  power,  and  to  wean 
the  Emperor  from  the  love  of  Poppaea,  gives  Otho 
encouragement,  and  promises  to  support  him.  Ani- 
cetus  secretly  introduces  Nei-o  to  hear  their  discourse; 
who  resolves  immediately  on  his  mother's  death,  and, 
by  Auicetus's  means,  to  destroy  her  by  drowning. 
A  solemn  feast  in  honor  of  their  reconciliation  is  to 
be  made;  after  which,  she  being  to  go  by  sea  to 
Bauli,  the  ship  is  so  contrived  as  to  sinls  or  crush 
her;  she  escapes  by  accident,  and  returns  to  Baiae. 
In  this  internal  Otho  has  an  interview  with  Poppaea; 
and,  being  duped  a  second  time  by  Anicetus  and  her, 
detei-mines  to  fly  with  her  into  Greece,  by  means  of 
a  vessel  which  is  to  be  furnished  by  Anicetus;  but 
he,  pretending  to  remove  Poppaea  on  board  in  .the 
night,  conveys  her  to  Nero's  appartment:  she  then 
encourages  and  determines  Nero  to  banish  Otho,  and 
finish  the  horrid  deed  he  had  attempted  on  his 
mother.  Anicetus  undertakes  to  execute  his  re- 
solves ;  and,  under  pretence  of  a  plot  upon  the  Em- 
peror's life,  is  sent  with  a  guard  to  murder  Agrip- 
pina, who  is  still  at  Baiae  in  imminent  fear,  and 
irresolute  how  to  conduct  herself.  The  account  of 
her  death,  and  the  Emperor's  horror  and  fruitless 
remorse,  finishes  the  drama."  —  Mason. 

The  Alliance  of  Education  and  Government. 

P.  73.  "  Instead  of  compiling  tables  of  chronol- 
ogy and  natural  history,  why  did  not  Mr.  Gray  ap- 
ply the  powers  of  his  genius  to  finish  the  philo- 
sophic poem  of  which  he  has  left  such  an  exquisite 
Bpecimen?  "  —  Gibbon. 
10 


146  XOTES. 

Staxzas  to  ilK.  Bextley. 

p.  77.  These  were  in  compliment  to  Bentley,  who 
drew  a  set  of  designs  for  Gray's  poems,  particularly 
a  head-piece  to  the  Long  Story.  The  original  draw- 
ings are  in  the  library  at  Strawberry  Hill.  See  H. 
Walpole's  Works,  Vol.  II.  p.  447.  The  words  within 
the  inverted  commas  were  supplied  by  Mason,  a 
comer  of  the  old  manuscript  copy  being  torn. 

Sketch  of  his  own  Character. 

P.  79.  Squirt.]  At  that  time  Fellow  of  St.  John's 
College,  Cambridge,  and  afterwards  Bishop  of  St. 
David's. 

So>'G. 

P,  81.  Written,  at  the  request  of  Miss  Speed,  to 
an  old  air  of  Geminiani :  —  the  thought  from  the 
French. 

Impromptu. 

P.  83.     Written  at  Denton  in  the  spring  of  1766. 


